davie355

In Ben's post about severe turbulence on Royal Jordanian he mentioned he had lost a brother and was worried about the stress on his parents. Tragic indeed.

(highlight text to view spoilers below)

The main "surprise" is that Ben is banned from United Airlines. I'd heard rumors of this, corroborated by the absence of UA trip reports, but I could never be sure until this article. Ben admitted to abusing the spirit of compensation (e.g., requesting $200 for a broken overhead light) but the article hints at something more sinister at play, lending credence to the rumor that Ben exploited a website bug to reuse vouchers and fly for free for a long time. The article says UA would not speak on the record about the reason for the ban, other than to say in vague terms that it was a serious violation.

Another shock was his involvement in a sex act, in flight, performed by a flight attendant. The article is vague on whether this was consensual or whether it was assault by the FA. I've noticed the OMAAT blog shedding its innocence, little by little -- see, e.g., the crude hashtag joke in the last Male/Maldives post -- but the explicit act described by Rolling Stone would be too much for the blog.

Oh, and the article mentions that Ben lived in Seattle with his boyfriend at the time. It was a childhood friend. To my knowledge Ben had never previously admitted to having a boyfriend, and in all his posts about Seattle I had presumed he lived alone. Actually, it seems to me Ben is reserved on his blog about his homosexuality -- only once in a stray comment did he say outright that he was gay -- and in fact his posts suggest the opposite, as in his review of La Compagnie in which he said the female flight attendants were pretty. But the Rolling Stone article gives it to us straight: he's gay (and apparently "realized" this in adolescence, having previously attended an all-boys Catholic school).

IIRC, no quote, just a reference ("according to friends...")