DESPITE a guilty plea the niece of fashion guru Ralph Lauren says she wasn’t drunk and never assaulted a flight attendant aboard a Delta flight.
"What Delta has said has been almost all lies. I would never hurt anybody. I was not intoxicated. I did not push anyone," Jenny Lauren, 41, said in an email to The New York Post in her first public comments since the incident.
The jewellery designer – whose own lawyer said was hopped up on booze and prescription meds during the air rage freakout – was fined $US2700 ($3000) in an Irish court on Wednesday after tearfully pleading guilty to charges of breach of peace on and being intoxicated.
But she changed her tune in the email, which was sent shortly after midnight.
"If you knew what really happened you would be amazed," said Lauren, blaming last Monday’s frightening fracas on a flight attendant.
"I stood up for myself to one stewardess who was rude and unkind and the next thing you know, they were landing the plane," she said.
When she found out that the JFK-bound jet from Barcelona was being rerouted for an emergency landing on the Emerald Isle, she got up to tell a traveling companion, she said.
"I was rushing up to see my friend in first class when they said they were going to land the plane. They threatened me," she said.
And she insisted that she was the real victim of the air rage incident.
"What is the worst part of the experience has been the media bashing and the amount of hatred and envy coming at me like poisoness [sic] darts," she wrote.
But Irish cops told a far different story in court, testifying that Lauren first became upset when her seat wouldn’t recline.
Flight attendant Constance Topping tried to help, but Lauren screamed at her to "get the f–k out of my face!" according to Garda Inspector Tom Kennedy
Topping’s supervisor, Jennifer Simpson, intervened, prompting Lauren to lace into her as well, calling her a "fat ugly, unhappy, blonde b—h." the Irish cop said.
Lauren, cops said, then rushed into the first-class compartment, where she shoved a crew member into an interior wall of the plane’s fuselage.
When a pilot came to see what was going on, she yelled, "You’re an a–hole!" Kennedy added.
"Passengers were getting concerned and standing up out of their seats. She told the air hostess she was going to go ballistic and pushed the air hostess hard and she hit her back against the wall of the aircraft,” he said.
Lauren in the email apologised for the inconvenience the delay caused passengers on the flight, which was 644 kilometres over the Atlantic when it turned around and headed back to Ireland.
The jet stayed on the tarmac at Shannon Airport for another two hours while cops investigated and took Lauren into custody.
"I am very sorry that the plane had to land and that it affected so many people," she wrote.
Lauren said she was only returning home from a sightseeing trip with an unnamed pal, and insisted she was no party animal.
"I went on a trip with my dear friend to see art and culture, to museums, and sight see. At home, I work night and day on my jewellery. I don’t go out much. My passion is making jewellery, creating art … and spending time with my father [Jerry] and my close friends,” wrote Lauren, who owns a jewellery line called Jenny Lauren Jewellery.
But she defiantly suggested that she wouldn’t do anything different under similar circumstances.
“I do tho stand up for myself, and for those I care about, and that which I believe in. And I always will,” her email concluded.
Lauren’s lawyer, Sharon Curley, admitted in court that the celebrity designer’s behaviour was "bizarre" but insisted it was out of character.
Lauren, Ms Curley said, suffers from depression, bi-polar and general anxiety disorders and was on medications for her mental maladies.
"My client is extremely embarrassed and extremely upset by her actions," Ms Curley said in court, apologising to the crew, passengers and Irish cops.
"She found the combination of the drinks, the altitude [and] medication … made her act completely out of character," the lawyer said.
Judge Patrick Durcan called Lauren’s abuse of the staffers reprehensible while accepting her guilty pleas.
After her arrest, Lauren spent a night in a local Garda lock-up and then made her initial court appearance on Tuesday in a makeshift courtroom in the nearby Brian Boru pub.
The Upper East Side resident returned to the US after Wednesday’s hearing in the rural market town of Ennis.
A rep for Delta could not immediately be reached.
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