Marissa Bode says she was blocked from boarding a flight because she uses a wheelchair, and she is not softening the claim.
The ‘Wicked’ actress posted a TikTok video on Thursday saying Southern Airways denied her boarding after she arrived for a flight to Pennsylvania. Bode, who played Nessarose in 2024’s ‘Wicked’ and its sequel ‘Wicked: For Good,’ said the issue began when she could not find her virtual ticket.
Then, according to Bode, the conversation took a shocking turn.
“I was denied boarding a flight because I’m disabled,” Bode said. “I wish that were clickbait. I wish that were false, but that is what happened.”
Bode Says Gate Agents Asked If She Could Stand
Bode said she asked staff at the gate for help locating her boarding pass.
“So I got to the gate, and I was like, ‘Hey, could you help me locate my boarding pass?’” she recalled.
Then, she said, two gate agents looked at her and asked one question.
“They are like, ‘Can you stand?’ And I said, ‘No.’ And they said, ‘I’m sorry, but because of that, we’re going to have to deny you boarding.’”
Bode said the airline staff told her the carrier’s planes require passengers to use stairs.
“They proceeded to tell me all the planes within this airline have stairs to get on the plane,” she said. “Wild. Never heard of that before.”
She Called It ‘Blatant Segregation’
Bode pushed back hard in the video, saying disabled passengers should not be treated like an afterthought. “I was like, disabled people are not an afterthought,” she said. “Why, knowing that disabled people exist, which y’all clearly often forget, do you choose not to update your planes?” Then she gave the strongest line of the clip. “And I was like, ‘This is blatant segregation.’”
Southern Airways’ contract of carriage says customers must be able to climb and descend several steps to board. The contract also says that because its planes carry “28 or fewer passengers,” the airline is exempt from providing mechanical lifts under the Air Carrier Access Act.
Bode said that did not match what her team had been told before the flight. She claimed her manager “spoke to them beforehand and they fully assured that I would be set for my flight.”
Her Career Is Moving Fast After ‘Wicked’
Bode’s TikTok gained attention partly because her public profile has grown quickly.
Her breakout came as Nessarose, Elphaba’s sister, in ‘Wicked.’ She later returned for ‘Wicked: For Good,’ keeping her tied to one of the biggest movie musical franchises of the moment.
She is also set to star in the upcoming psychological thriller ‘Snare,’ directed by Sonja O’Hara and Adam Hoelzel. In the film, Bode will play Greta Mills, a mushroom researcher caught in a violent love triangle. Greg Tarzan Davis, known for ‘Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning’ and ‘Top Gun: Maverick,’ will also appear.
For now, Bode’s airline story is drawing a different kind of attention. Her message was direct: disability access is not optional, and she believes what happened to her should not happen to anyone else.
