Natalie Joy Addresses Woman via Text Regarding Her Daughter
Nick Viall and Natalie Joy encountered a judgmental passenger during a recent flight with their 15-month-old daughter.
Joy, 26, shared the story on “The Viall Files” podcast on May 28, explaining that after boarding business class at LAX, she noticed a woman texting about their daughter, River Rose.
“We hadn’t even left the gate, and I noticed the woman in front of me. You know I love eavesdropping on planes,” Joy mentioned, adding that River was in a “talkative” mood but not crying.
“As I looked at the woman, who I initially thought would be nice since we made eye contact during boarding, I read on her phone, ‘18-month-old in business class.’ I thought, ‘Here we go.’”
Joy went on: “Then she texts her friends, saying, ‘There’s a young couple behind me in business class with their around [1]-year-old kid screaming. The kind of people who think it’s cute. They need to learn to quiet their kid… the poor woman next to me is trying to work.’”
Viall, 44, interjected, “What are we supposed to do? Punish [her]? Put [her] in a corner? Should we ask her nicely?”
Joy noted that the woman misspelled “their” as “t-h-e-r-e,” which she pointed out when she gathered the courage to confront her.
“As she finished her message, I leaned forward and tapped her on the shoulder, saying, ‘It’s t-h-e-i-r. Their kid, not there,’” Joy recounted. Viall chimed in that he had “no idea this was happening” but did hear Joy address the spelling mistake.
Joy recalled the woman asking if she was peeking at her screen, to which she retorted, “Are you texting about my kid?”
“She huffed and turned around. Then she pulled out her phone, at the same brightness and text size, stating, ‘She just confronted me about a spelling error. She’s reading my text from behind me. LOL. I respect it.’”
Interestingly, the woman was “impressed” by Joy’s response, noting that the situation could have been avoided if she had adjusted her phone’s brightness and text size.
In the May 29 episode of “The Viall Files,” the couple discussed the reactions to the incident, with Joy noting some people were “more upset with me for reading the text than the woman talking badly about my kid.”
Despite comments about how business class is for work, Viall explained, “Having a kid makes you more empathetic towards everything in life. When I see another parent on a flight, I want to help. I don’t want to intrude… but it can be tough.”
Joy and Viall welcomed River in February 2024, two months before their wedding in April 2024. They have been open about their struggles to expand their family, with Joy recently going through two miscarriages.
“I stayed off my phone yesterday but was overwhelmed by the love I woke up to,” Joy shared on Instagram in March after revealing her second loss. “Thanks for staying with us; I believe we’ll get our rainbow baby one day.”
