We're on a Plane - Snap Classic

300 people spend a week on a plane with Rihanna to attend seven concerts, in seven countries, over seven days. And when morale is low among a group of paratroopers, their Sergeant takes them on an unexpected trip. STORIES Diamonds in the Sky Fans and journalists embark on a seven-show tour with Rihanna… in seven countries, over seven days, on a Boeing 777, to celebrate her seventh album in seven years. Did we mention this happened seven years ago? This story contains explicit language. Sensitive listeners please be advised. Special thanks to Kristen Gwynne, Lawrence Bull, and Elizabeth Nakano. Produced by John Fecile, original score by Renzo Gorrio. Acid Jump When morale is low among a group of paratroopers, their Sergeant takes them on an unexpected trip. Check out Ray’s podcast, “What’s Ray Saying? http://whatsraysaying.libsyn.com/” and follow him on Twitter @WhatsRaySaying https://soundcloud.com/WhatsRaySaying! Produced by Adizah Eghan, original score by Leon Morimoto. Season 16 - Episode 35 Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices https://dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:08Glynn Washington?

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• 0:48Glynn Washington?

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• 1:31Glynn Washington?

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• 2:16Glynn Washington?

  It's the best way to support the show.

• 2:30Glynn Washington?

  Okay, so, a little while ago, in San Francisco, I get to speak at the huge music festival Outside Lands with the Ear Hustle Crew. We talk about storytelling on stage, a bunch of amazing listeners come out, and it's all good, it's awesome, actually. But then, our party's over, and it's still fairly early in the day, so we wander, and security is tight, tight, tight, tight, tight, you're not allowed here, or there, over there. But we realize, we've got the Holy Grail, we're wearing artist's pass wristbands.

• 3:10Glynn Washington?

  So, tentatively, I wander up to the big-looking bouncer guy, in front of the velvet rope area. "Can I help you?" So, I hold out my arm for his scanning machine, half expecting a beatdown, and his light turns green. This giant, he steps aside, waves us through backstage area access, where they've got the good stuff, the brews on tap, the chef-prepared meal with champagne on ice, baby. Then I see some smartly dressed people on a platform, the cool kids, over there, I

• 3:50Glynn Washington?

  try to join them, but another security guard stops me, I hold out my arm again to his machine, the light goes green. He steps aside, I stroll over to the special platform, like I'm supposed to be there. "How you doing?" And I start thinking, they've got the big names coming out on stage, Lil Wayne, Anderson Fox, Paul Simon. Paul Simon is in one of these trailers, and I'm thinking, if Paul gets to know me, we'd be great friends, he and I, maybe we could jam together, late night, Paul and me, me and Paul. So I head off to the trailer area, two big bouncers, this time, no worries, I show them

• 4:33Glynn Washington?

  my all-access artist's pass, they take out the machine, the light turns red, and so do their eyes, and as I'm backing up, I wonder...

• 4:46Glynn Washington?

  What if it worked? What if I had the special access? The golden ticket, the backstage pass? What if? What if? Well, today on Snap Judgment, we're not gonna just get you inside the trailer. We're not just gonna ride inside the limousine. No friends, get ready, cuz today, we're on a plane. We're on a plane. Throw your hands up. We're on a plane.

• 5:15Glynn Washington?

  The way the 1% of the 1% travels. Get ready, cuz we are four or five seconds from wildin'. My name is Glynn Washington. My diamonds have diamonds. When you're listening to Snap Judgment.

• 5:44Glynn Washington?

  Now then, what would you do with a chance of a lifetime? If you got a golden ticket and spend a week with someone whom you admire, whom you idolize, someone with beauty and wealth and mystique and power, on their private airplane, what would you do? Now, this story is about a rock star. Solicitor discretion is advised. Snap Judgment.

• 6:09Speaker 01

  The way we all know that Rihanna's on the plane, cuz at this point, it's like we're tittering. We're like in our assigned seat. And she gets on the P A. And it's just Rihanna.

• 6:21Speaker 02

  Ladies and gentlemen, there is an emergency. Call 7 fucking 77.

• 6:33Speaker 01

  All of a sudden, Rihanna appears and she's like, who's ready to party?

• 6:41Speaker 01

  Everyone is up out of their seats screaming her name.

• 6:47Speaker 01

  She's giving shots and glasses of champagne to everyone.

• 6:54Speaker 03

  When she got to my seat, she just poured generally in my area. Not in a cup, just all over my seats, all over me.

• 7:02Speaker 01

  It was just insane.

• 7:03Speaker 04

  Monday, November 12th, 2012. We're on a plane on a runway at LAX. Rihanna, and yeah, that is how you say her name.

• 7:13Speaker 02

  Hi Vogue, it's Rihanna. Welcome to Paris.

• 7:15Speaker 04

  Is about to take off on a seven-day world tour.

• 7:18Speaker 02

  Get your eyes to the seat. Buckle up the seatbelt.

• 7:22Speaker 04

  And she's bringing along 150 fans and 150 journalists.

• 7:27Speaker 02

  Everybody on this plane right now is the party.

• 7:30Speaker 05

  We all got our own diamond. It was the teeniest, tiniest little chip of a diamond.

• 7:36Speaker 04

  That's true. They all got little diamonds.

• 7:39Speaker 06

  And I remember distinctly Rihanna saying, "Now you can never say that no one's ever given you a diamond."

• 7:50Speaker 04

  First stop, Mexico City.

• 7:52Speaker 01

  People were crying and freaking out that she was there.

• 7:59Speaker 04

  There's neon lights and confetti cannons, and the journalists write down her every move.

• 8:05Speaker 07

  The baddest bitch has hit the stage.

• 8:07Speaker 03

  Rihanna whines and wiggles. She pats her thighs as if slapping cheese on them.

• 8:12Speaker 05

  The thing that I remember the most was when she did the song "Stay." It was just her stripped down, and her voice was incredible.

• 8:31Speaker 01

  If you were a child in bed and someone was just like, "I'm gonna grant you a wish," and you're like, "I wanna hang out with Rihanna." This is definitely top three things you would envision. Like you being whisked away on her world tour with her. It just felt like such a safe space and trust circle. And then, and then...

• 8:55Speaker 08

  It kind of pulled down the curtain a little bit and showed us that everything is a lie.

• 9:03Speaker 04

  Julianne Escobedo Shepherd covered the tour for Spin.

• 9:07Speaker 08

  I'll never have an experience like that again. Definitely no other musician will ever do that again.

• 9:14Speaker 07

  I had no idea what I was in for.

• 9:17Speaker 04

  Su-Young Kim Abrams worked at Complex magazine, where it was a known fact that she was the biggest Rihanna fan. So when Su-Young found out her editor was prepping a cover story about Rihanna, she wanted to be the one to write it. But she was nervous. She'd never written a cover story before.

• 9:36Speaker 07

  I just had so much imposter syndrome. And I was a young girl working for a men's magazine. And I said, what will I say for him to trust me to give me the biggest story probably of the year? So I walk into his room and I said, hey, you know, if you don't give me this Rihanna cover story, I might blow up the building.

• 9:58Speaker 04

  Her editor was convinced. And a few weeks later, she was on the tour.

• 10:02Speaker 07

  I didn't think I would get it. And I think that's why I asked. Because if I knew I would get it, I would have never asked because I would have been terrified to write this piece.

• 10:13Speaker 04

  What was your hope going into this?

• 10:17Speaker 07

  It's embarrassing, but my hope was to be best friends with Rihanna.

• 10:20Speaker 04

  But she also had to deliver an article, a big one, a cover story.

• 10:24Speaker 07

  It was like, oh, man, if I don't do a good job, I'm screwed.

• 10:28Speaker 02

  A seven-show tour in seven countries in seven days.

• 10:33Speaker 04

  It was called the 777 Tour.

• 10:36Speaker 09

  Rihanna's first stop is Mexico City, followed by Toronto, Stockholm, Paris, Berlin, London, and ending up in New York.

• 10:44Speaker 04

  14,000 miles in the sky on a Boeing 777.

• 10:48Speaker 07

  777 plane.

• 10:52Speaker 04

  All to promote "Unapologetic", Rihanna's seventh album in seven years.

• 10:58Speaker 09

  I'm trying to picture this airplane situation. Will you be like, hey, I'm gonna go grab an orange juice and the fans will see you walk by? Or is this, how's this work?

• 11:05Speaker 07

  Definitely. We're all in the same plane together.

• 11:08Speaker 04

  The plane is divided into three sections. At the back, the fans.

• 11:13Speaker 03

  And that was like where you went to die?

• 11:18Speaker 04

  Jeff Rosenthal, Rolling Stone.

• 11:20Speaker 03

  That was like where like the madness was. It's 150 Rihanna fans. Like, they're singing Rihanna songs constantly.

• 11:27Speaker 04

  In the middle, the journalists.

• 11:29Speaker 08

  I was really, really nervous and I was super excited. And I obviously went shopping because I didn't want to look like a scrub.

• 11:35Speaker 04

  There are magazine writers, TV show hosts, photographers, videographers, bloggers. And unlike the fans who are just here to party, they have a job to do.

• 11:45Speaker 08

  Music journalists don't ever get this type of access. You know, I think a lot of people look at our jobs and think that it's all like almost famous, like we can go on the bus with the Stones or whatever. That just doesn't happen. You know, you would be lucky to get an hour with someone like this.

• 12:03Speaker 09

  Are you like sweats and slippers and like cream on your face and just hey?

• 12:06Speaker 02

  Definitely, they'll see me in every realm.

• 12:09Speaker 04

  Rihanna is at the front, behind a curtain, in first class. With Def Jam executives, her band, her entourage. They all have their own private sleep pods and Wi-Fi. And Rihanna has brought along her personal masseuse.

• 12:23Speaker 02

  It's not even, ugh, it's not even gonna be glamorous. Like, trust me, I probably-

• 12:27Speaker 04

  Everybody's here for one thing. They want access to Rihanna. But after that walk-through on day one, she pretty much stays behind the curtain, which is surprising for Su Young.

• 12:38Speaker 07

  We thought we were going to have a chance to ask her questions. Kind of like how after a basketball game, there's a press conference?

• 12:45Speaker 06

  Why are we doing this tour? How are you going to do it? What is your rest regimen? When did you rehearse this?

• 12:52Speaker 04

  Esteban Serrano worked for Fuse TV.

• 12:55Speaker 10

  I am super excited to see what's to store.

• 12:58Speaker 06

  How did the band come together? How are you putting together your setlist? What are you doing in these countries when you're not on stage? We want to know all of these things.

• 13:07Speaker 04

  You have experienced a crew change. We will be with you for the duration of your tour. It's our pleasure- But as the plane leaves Mexico City, they still haven't had a chance to ask these questions. And the harsh reality of tour begins to set in.

• 13:21Speaker 01

  I didn't realize we'd be sleeping on the plane.

• 13:23Speaker 04

  Mary HK Choi, MTV Style Blog.

• 13:26Speaker 01

  We were all super sleep deprived. We just wanted to be supine on any surface.

• 13:31Speaker 04

  The label did provide hotels, but not at every stop, and never for very long.

• 13:37Speaker 05

  I think over seven days, I probably slept for like 10 hours total.

• 13:41Speaker 04

  Maude Deitch, also MTV Style Blog.

• 13:44Speaker 05

  I doubt I slept in more than three-hour bursts at any point.

• 13:48Speaker 01

  We're sitting, sleeping with this like fear that if we fall asleep right after the actual show, that we were gonna miss the food.

• 13:56Speaker 08

  We were kind of subsisting on sad airplane sandwiches. Honestly, like, you know that really famous tweet of the sandwich at Fire Fest? Like, kind of similar situation.

• 14:13Speaker 03

  I don't have much weight to lose. I'm very tall, I'm very skinny. I lost two belt loops.

• 14:17Speaker 07

  The only thing that we could have overflowing amounts of was alcohol.

• 14:23Speaker 01

  Some of us actually remedied these feelings of like disorientation by just staying super drunk.

• 14:29Speaker 08

  I couldn't really drink like that because I was going to die.

• 14:32Speaker 04

  Julianne is sick with what will later turn into pneumonia.

• 14:36Speaker 08

  I puked so much, and it was generally because I was coughing too much.

• 14:44Speaker 04

  The journalists get herded from plane to bus to venue. They barely see daylight. And as the tour progresses, their tweets become increasingly unhinged.

• 14:55Speaker 05

  I've completely lost all sense of time and living in a fugue state beyond jet lag.

• 15:00Speaker 03

  Please, God, make this end.

• 15:02Speaker 08

  I'm gonna amaze someone in the eyes with my face cleanser for a carrot spear. #prediction. #saveus. #riannaplane.

• 15:11Speaker 04

  By the time they make it through Toronto, and Stockholm, and land in Paris,

• 15:21Speaker 04

  the #riannaplane is trending on Twitter.

• 15:24Speaker 06

  Paris was the tipping point.

• 15:27Speaker 05

  Even if you want to go to sleep, you can't go to sleep. You have to stay up. You have to see what is gonna happen because nothing is happening, and we have to get something.

• 15:37Speaker 04

  Def Jam, the record label, knew the press were antsy. So after Rihanna performed the exact same show for the fourth time in a row in Paris.

• 15:46Speaker 11

  Paris, what's up?

• 15:48Speaker 05

  We didn't know that every show was gonna be exactly the same, and that the only difference would be her outfits and the city that she mentioned when she shouted out the T-Mobile sponsorship.

• 15:59Speaker 04

  They decide to throw the press a bone by inviting them to party with Rihanna at a swanky Paris nightclub.

• 16:07Speaker 01

  It's gonna be totally VIP. You're gonna have all this access. She's gonna be there.

• 16:11Speaker 04

  The journalists get there at midnight, and Rihanna doesn't show up until 3 a.m. But when she does, she arrives with an entourage of celebrities.

• 16:19Speaker 07

  Puff Daddy, Cassie, Omarion.

• 16:23Speaker 05

  Everyone kind of rushed Rihanna and Diddy and Omarion and Cassie, like, something's gonna happen. We have this moment of access now. Maybe this is when we all get to hang out. And then suddenly, these velvet ropes appeared.

• 16:36Speaker 07

  They started putting velvet ropes between the VIP and the rest of us.

• 16:43Speaker 04

  Su Young can't see Rihanna behind the velvet rope and the wall of security guys. She can't take notes. She can't do any reporting. None of them can.

• 16:54Speaker 07

  How is she drinking from her cup, you know? Like, is she smoking a blunt inside? Just anything we could write about to paint a picture of her on this tour, we couldn't even get that.

• 17:06Speaker 04

  This is bad news for her cover story.

• 17:09Speaker 07

  I really thought I was gonna come back from the tour and be fired.

• 17:12Speaker 04

  Her editor is sending her frustrated emails.

• 17:14Speaker 07

  I felt that I was letting people down. They gave me this huge opportunity to go on this tour, and I wasn't giving them anything. But I also knew that I had no other options.

• 17:23Speaker 04

  Su Young had managed to lock down an interview with Rihanna after the tour. So she didn't want to write about how badly it was going and risk losing that interview.

• 17:32Speaker 07

  The record company is very strict, and if you upset them, then your future access is gone. So I was in a very tricky situation where I felt like I needed to work, but I couldn't.

• 17:47Speaker 04

  Other people's editors are threatening not to pay them. And several journalists actually leave the tour.

• 17:53Speaker 08

  It's not like we were there for shits and giggles. We were there because we had jobs to do, and we needed to go home and get our freelance paychecks so we could buy cat food.

• 18:00Speaker 04

  A few hours after their failed nightclub rendezvous, they go to the airport. But Rihanna doesn't show.

• 18:06Speaker 06

  Rihanna, legendarily.

• 18:10Speaker 06

  Crazily. Rihanna's tardiness will probably be the most memorable thing from this tour.

• 18:19Speaker 04

  Def Jam reportedly racked up over $300,000 in fines from airports for not taking off on time.

• 18:26Speaker 03

  We were waiting on the tarmac for hours, hours and hours and hours. And someone checked Twitter and saw that Rihanna was not on the plane. She was shopping for lingerie on Champs-Elysees.

• 18:42Speaker 05

  There are photos of her from basically that moment, shopping for underwear in Paris. That's when I think all of us got super salty.

• 18:51Speaker 07

  We're going mental at this point. People have turned on our lovely angel.

• 18:59Speaker 12

  What's the big deal? You're here because of her. She's not here because of you.

• 19:04Speaker 04

  Lama Amin, Rihanna's personal masseuse on the tour.

• 19:08Speaker 12

  What does it have to do with them? Because they had to wait for her? They didn't have to wait for her. And they were snotty like that. They were snotty like that. A lot of the press were stunning. Whoa, we gotta do this. And what are you, huh?

• 19:21Speaker 04

  Lama is one of the best. She's worked with Beyonce, Jay-Z, Justin Bieber, so many more.

• 19:28Speaker 13

  And what is it about your fingers that makes them magic?

• 19:31Speaker 12

  I'm doing the audio, girl, so she could tell you really, because I don't know how to explain it. But I'm very precise.

• 19:37Speaker 04

  Here, God.

• 19:38Speaker 12

  Yeah, she said, I'm God.

• 19:40Speaker 13

  Are you massaging my tape sinker right now?

• 19:43Speaker 12

  I did.

• 19:44Speaker 04

  What Lama can do with her hands is she can make celebrities fall dead asleep. And that's what she's doing on this tour. She's working on Rihanna's neck while she's in the car on the way to the show, working on her feet while she's in makeup. Also, the bad girl can catch a few Z's before she has to go onstage.

• 20:01Speaker 12

  I'll be honest with you. That girl was so exhausted. It takes a lot of energy to do interviews and talk to press, and there was a lot of them. If she did one, she'd have to talk to all.

• 20:16Speaker 04

  While Lama had her hands full with Rihanna, and Su Young and the others were starving for anything from Rihanna, there was one member of the press corps who seemed the least worried.

• 20:27Speaker 07

  We were all pretty sick of the Australian guy.

• 20:30Speaker 05

  Oh god, that fucking guy. He would play the harmonica incessantly.

• 20:35Speaker 08

  Everyone was about to murder him. Like, literally, people were going to just go over there and like, slice his hands off.

• 20:47Speaker 13

  Hey, you don't like my harmonica? Fuck you. We're here to party.

• 20:52Speaker 04

  That's Tim, the Australian guy. He was sitting a few rows behind Su Young.

• 20:56Speaker 07

  Tim looks like your typical Australian surfer dude with long curly blonde hair. He's loud and wild.

• 21:06Speaker 13

  A lot of people were treating it like a serious sort of job, and it was for a lot of people. That sounds funny, me saying a lot of people were treating it like a serious job. It just shows that I didn't.

• 21:16Speaker 04

  Tim DJed for Nova, a radio station in Sydney. He got offered the tour last minute.

• 21:22Speaker 13

  It was a bit of a lucky break moment where they gave me an opportunity, and then I think they may have regretted it come the long run.

• 21:29Speaker 04

  Tim had one job to do on this tour, just one. He had to get a shot of Rihanna holding a cardboard cutout of his radio station's logo.

• 21:39Speaker 13

  But you know what? Before we'd even taken off, like, the plane was still on the runway.

• 21:44Speaker 11

  More Australia?

• 21:45Speaker 13

  Yeah. I just jumped up, grabbed Rihanna, and shoved the Nova logo in her hand and pointed the camera.

• 21:52Speaker 10

  Say hi to Nova.

• 21:54Speaker 13

  Literally before we'd taken off, I had sent that back to my boss, and he just text back and said, "Oh my god, your work here is done."

• 22:03Speaker 10

  Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I once again welcome aboard. Flight time to Berlin will be approximately one hour and 15 minutes.

• 22:11Speaker 04

  After Paris, the next stop is Berlin.

• 22:13Speaker 03

  To kill time, because we got there to the venue actually early. We went on this bizarre tour where they were showing us like the chips that she would be eating. They pointed at like a tray of chips and they were like, "Oh, like, these are for Rihanna." It's like, "Oh, great. Sure." Like, people were taking pictures.

• 22:32Speaker 04

  Showtime comes and goes.

• 22:34Speaker 01

  German people are not fucking around and they were really turning on her and like yelling as she was like becoming later and later and later.

• 22:42Speaker 05

  The vibe in Berlin was scary. The show was very, very delayed and the venue was very, very hot and people were very, very mad.

• 22:52Speaker 04

  Three hours later, Rihanna takes the stage.

• 22:55Speaker 11

  It is so hot in here. Why do you say hot in German?

• 23:00Speaker 04

  Then Su Young and the rest of the journalists are swept back onto the bus and taken to the plane.

• 23:05Speaker 07

  You could feel the tension in the airplane. Like people were not feeling good and they were ready to, they were ready to leave.

• 23:23Glynn Washington?

  It is not over, snappers. After this short break, the Rihanna plane is ready for liftoff. Stay tuned.

• 23:41Glynn Washington?

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• 24:50Speaker 14

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• 25:28Glynn Washington?

  Welcome back to Snap Judgment. When last we left, Rihanna's seven-day world tour just checked off Berlin, and things are heating up.

• 25:40Speaker 05

  You could feel the tension in the airplane. Like, people were not feeling good, and they were ready to leave.

• 25:48Speaker 04

  But the plane doesn't take off.

• 25:50Speaker 05

  And they just started handing out alcohol, like, giving people these giant cups of cognac.

• 25:55Speaker 01

  And people just keep getting drunk.

• 25:57Speaker 05

  Turnt up, and drunk, and rowdy.

• 26:01Speaker 01

  You can feel that sort of coalescing energy, and so we're kind of shouting at each other at this point.

• 26:08Speaker 04

  Finally, liftoff.

• 26:10Speaker 05

  No one would sit down. People were kind of just running around and bugging out, and the flight attendants were yelling at people.

• 26:18Speaker 04

  There's a camera crew roving around the plane, filming all this, which the journalists do not like.

• 26:24Speaker 05

  Wait, this was never the deal. I'm supposed to be the one reporting on this? Nobody's supposed to be reporting on me.

• 26:30Speaker 04

  And one guy starts making fun of them.

• 26:32Speaker 06

  He makes a joke about, like, how much B-roll can you get? There's nothing going on here. And that turns into a chant. And the chant is just, "B-roll, B-roll, B-roll." One of the other journalists goes, "Just one quote, just one quote."

• 26:56Speaker 13

  It had descended into chaos.

• 26:59Speaker 01

  It was a little scary. We're all like, "Save our jobs, save our jobs," or like, "I need a headline." Like Norma Rae out here. "Free the Rihanna 150, occupy Rihanna plane. Where have you been all this flight? Are you hiding from us?"

• 27:16Speaker 13

  Rihanna, come and say hello to us.

• 27:20Speaker 06

  All the pressure, all the frustration just came to a head and turned into a riot.

• 27:26Speaker 10

  It is absolute pandemonium in this place.

• 27:31Speaker 06

  There was just a cry for help from Rihanna, like, "Save our jobs."

• 27:36Speaker 13

  But Rihanna stays behind the curtain. We did hear some rumor that there was like some panic room on the plane.

• 27:42Speaker 12

  A panic room? Where would a panic room be on the plane? Like, the front bathroom or what?

• 27:49Speaker 04

  Again, Lama Amin, her masseuse.

• 27:51Speaker 12

  We all looked at each other with that look like, "What the hell?" You know, that jump kind of look. Security got on edge. Rihanna was getting updates, like, she wanted to know, she was like, "What are they doing?" I think she peeked, but no, she did not go back there. That was not a good idea for her to go back there. No, she shouldn't go back there. That's not cool. Fans and press, they can be dangerous. I'm sorry to say that, but it's true. Paparazzi and fans tromp on you, run you over. When they act up like that, it can sound like a threat.

• 28:28Speaker 03

  I remember Steve Bartles, the president of Def Jam at the time, walking out and just going, "What the fuck?" Like, they, they could not have been more shell shocked. It was shocking.

• 28:39Speaker 06

  And then, like, out of the corner of your eye, rushing past you, and it went...

• 28:45Speaker 01

  This like naked white dude goes whizzing past in my peripheral vision.

• 28:50Speaker 06

  Butt naked, like fucking Pegasus through the clouds.

• 28:54Speaker 07

  All of a sudden, I just see butt. I just see like butt cheeks running right past me. And I see long blonde hair flowing, and I knew exactly who it was.

• 29:08Speaker 13

  Yeah, it was a bit of a blur. I remember some people pulled out their cameras, their video cameras and phones straight away. At the back of the plane, I did kind of leap over one guy. And I remember him sort of squealing, and he was a grown man.

• 29:24Speaker 03

  Everything became so good after that guy ran around naked. Finally, finally, something happened. Tim was the knife that cut the tension.

• 29:32Speaker 08

  Definitely broke the tension, and we started laughing hysterically. I was laughing so hard that I puked like a bunch of lung mucus into a plane blanket in front of me.

• 29:46Speaker 12

  And then it kind of turned into a party where they weren't mad anymore, I guess. Whoever streaked, we should thank him because he made it light. He really did.

• 29:54Speaker 04

  Everybody got out their laptops and went to work. Soon, videos of Tim running naked would rocket across the internet.

• 30:02Speaker 13

  Someone said, "You don't realize what you've just done. You've just given a plane full of hungry press a story."

• 30:11Speaker 06

  As Rihanna hops the globe for her 777 tour, things got rowdy on board a jet filled with journalists and her fans.

• 30:17Speaker 05

  One of them streaked down the aisle. There he goes, butt naked. Everyone wanted to be the one to break that story. Scroots on a plane.

• 30:25Speaker 06

  Is it the story everyone wanted? Hell, no.

• 30:31Speaker 04

  But for Su Young, it was a story she couldn't tell without risking her interview.

• 30:36Speaker 07

  I was like, ugh, I don't know if I can write about that.

• 30:38Speaker 13

  I think I thought, oh, great. This is going to go back to my boss. I'm going to be in trouble.

• 30:45Speaker 04

  When Tim got off the plane in London, one of the suits from Def Jam was waiting for him.

• 30:50Speaker 13

  They pulled me aside and said, "Look, we actually don't know what to do with you. Like, what you've done is illegal." They said, "If this was a commercial plane, you'd be arrested. We're going to watch how this story unfolds. But to be honest, it is one of the first positive stories to come out of the plane. Like, you've actually made this tour look fun."

• 31:13Speaker 04

  And then, when they're descending into New York, Rihanna decides to address the press.

• 31:20Speaker 04

  It's the first time they've seen her in Coach since LAX.

• 31:23Speaker 11

  Thank you, everybody, for making this trip for shit.

• 31:27Speaker 04

  For someone who just released an album titled Unapologetic, she is kind of apologetic.

• 31:33Speaker 03

  She was like, "I'm really sorry that I wasn't able to party with you guys." And all these people, from the back of the plane, from the middle of the plane, everywhere, ran to where Rihanna was. Cameras out, just commotion. That might have been, honestly, the most insane, because I was just like, I understand why she wouldn't want to hang out with us. Like, people just lost their shit.

• 31:58Speaker 10

  Are you glad you did 777?

• 32:00Speaker 11

  Absolutely. I'm glad. And I'm glad I did it like this. We landed.

• 32:05Speaker 10

  What can we expect in New York?

• 32:07Speaker 05

  At MTV, we had black cars that would be waiting for you at the airport. Very old-school journalism. And I got into my town car and was just like, "It's over. I'm alone." That was the biggest thing, was being alone for the first time in six days.

• 32:25Speaker 13

  When we landed in New York, someone came up to me and said, "You're coming with me for the day, and we're doing press all day."

• 32:32Speaker 15

  I want to bring in VH1's Janelle Snowden and Australian DJ Tim Dormer. Oh, my goodness.

• 32:37Speaker 13

  They got me to strip down and, like, interviewed me about this tour on American television. Have you seen where they blurred me out? They weren't very generous. I remember meeting Anderson Cooper in the hallways. I'm not even joking. We're in the CNN building, and Anderson Cooper goes to me, "You are the news today."

• 32:59Speaker 06

  The weight of the experience stuck with me for a while. Not on some, like, PTSD, but kinda.

• 33:07Speaker 04

  Tell me about your Rihanna plane dreams.

• 33:10Speaker 06

  Oh, man. I legit had Rihanna plane dreams where Rihanna never got on the plane. And we just sat there for days. Like, water's running low, like, ate all the peanuts. People are, like, sick.

• 33:28Speaker 03

  I don't know if anybody's told you this, but Def Jam, after this whole thing, the idea was to do an 888 tour, where they would get a boat in Miami. And I would have done it again. I would have gone on the 888 tour.

• 33:40Speaker 01

  I came back with more of an obsession with Rihanna, which I wasn't expecting at all. Like, I thought I would have enough self-possession and dignity to hate her afterwards, but that was false.

• 33:50Speaker 05

  We always talked about Stockholm syndrome, but it really is like that. Like, I admire her as my captor for what she did to me.

• 33:57Speaker 08

  It just made me embarrassed for the human condition. The human condition of standing. You know, the human condition of believing that someone is better than you just because they happen to be extremely talented.

• 34:12Speaker 04

  Su Young did finally get her interview with Rihanna a few weeks after the tour.

• 34:17Speaker 07

  Man, it was really crazy just sitting at a small dinner table at a very intimate restaurant next to her. I still can't believe that happened to me.

• 34:27Speaker 04

  The interview was short, and she did not ask about the 777 tour. Her story came out, and then, a year later, she was at a fashion show in New York.

• 34:40Speaker 07

  When I walk in, there's a swarm of paparazzi surrounding someone. When I look closely, I realize that it's Rihanna and her friend Melissa. So I took a deep breath, and I walked into the crowd of paparazzi, cut through them, went up to Rihanna and her friend and said, "Hey, how's it going?" And she looked at me and noticed that I changed my hair and said, "Oh, my gosh, you dyed your hair blonde. It looks so good." And I said, "Thank you so much." I almost peed my pants. And then I went back to my seat. And then, everybody after the show, obviously, was looking at me because they were looking at Rihanna. And they said, "Wow, we didn't know you and Rihanna were best friends." And I was like, "Well, you know, we have a history. We went on tour together."

• 35:39Glynn Washington?

  Since the 777 tour, Rihanna has released one album and is working on another. She's the first black woman in charge of a major luxury fashion house with her bare self. According to Forbes, she is also the world's richest female musician, worth $600 million. Why are they up in her business? And she has nine Grammys. She did not respond to a request for an interview, yet.

• 36:08Speaker 11

  You know, my success, it started as my dream. But no, my success is not, it's not my own, you know? It's my family's, it's my fans, it's my countries, it's the Caribbean as a whole, it's women, it's black women, it, it, so many people.

• 36:32Glynn Washington?

  Respect. Special thanks to Kristen Gwynn, Lawrence Bull, and Elizabeth Nakano. The original score for this story was by Renzo Gorrio. It was produced by John Facio.

• 36:53Glynn Washington?

  Now in just a moment, we're boarding another flight when the We're on a Plane episode continues. Stay tuned.

• 37:08Speaker 16

  This show is supported by Odoo. When you buy business software from lots of vendors, the costs add up and it gets complicated and confusing. Odoo solves this. It's a single company that sells a suite of enterprise apps that handles everything from accounting to inventory to sales. Odoo is all connected on a single platform in a simple and affordable way. You can save money without missing out on the features you need. Check out Odoo at O D O O dot com. That's O D O O dot com.

• 37:43Glynn Washington?

  Snap Judgment's Orbiting Hall of Justice. Welcome back to Snap Judgment, the We're on a Plane episode. And you might think that you've had reason for alarm in your own past, but there are next story, a longtime friend of the show, Ray Christian. And aside from being a storytelling legend, Ray's an Army man. Snap Judgment.

• 38:15Speaker 17

  In 1984, I was a 22-year-old young sergeant assigned to an airborne infantry battalion. We were paratroopers.

• 38:26Speaker 17

  I was stationed at Fort Bragg. We'd conduct night combat equipment jumps that would involve thousands of paratroopers at once. The training was dangerous and it wasn't unusual for us to have guys severely injured or even killed during these training operations.

• 38:44Speaker 17

  We had young soldiers in the company that were Grenada vets and our senior NCOs, a lot of them were Vietnam vets. Our young soldiers who were just chomping at the bit to get a chance at combat. Guys start doing drugs, guys start drinking, guys have problems with their wives, their girlfriends.

• 39:03Speaker 17

  Morale in the company was starting to drop. And this added up to so much stress, we had a few guys go AWOL.

• 39:15Speaker 17

  Me and Sergeant Ronnie were assigned to inventory the soldiers locker and equipment who had went AWOL. It was uniforms, civilian clothing, radio clock. And in the corner, there's this little folded bindle of aluminum foil.

• 39:32Speaker 17

  Unfolded and I saw inside were two small stamps with stars on them.

• 39:38Glynn Washington?

  Whoa, acid?

• 39:40Speaker 17

  Nah.

• 39:42Speaker 17

  So I took one of the stamps out and I said, "Hey Ronnie, put one of these in your mouth." He looked at me and he said, "What is this, acid?" I, I figured it was acid, but I wasn't gonna really take one. I was just fooling around with him, you know, put it in your mouth, just kidding with him.

• 39:58Speaker 17

  He looked at it for a second and said, "Why not?" And put it in his mouth and I laughed.

• 40:10Speaker 17

  Sergeant Ronnie was the kind of guy that was very hyper military. He was kinda strict, he had a high pitched voice, pretty by the book kinda guy. He looked at me and said, "So what are you gonna do?" He must know something I don't know, he wouldn't take acid. I just knew, when he put it in his mouth, it had to be fake. Then he looked at me and said, "What are you gonna do?" I said, "Hey, okay, same as you, I put one in my mouth."

• 40:42Speaker 17

  We take the inventory sheet, we turn it into supply, we start heading out. And as we were walking across the parking lot, the battalion sergeant major yelled out, "Hey, you two guys, what are you doing, where you going?" I said, "Oh my god, Sergeant Major." We said, "We're heading out Sergeant Major, heading home." He said, "Oh no you're not, get your gear, you're going on the jump."

• 41:08Speaker 17

  Because we had the additional duty of inventorying this guy's equipment, we believed that we weren't gonna be involved in the jump. But Sergeant Major, I think, uh-uh, he cut me off. "We need to get these chutes filled, let's go, let's move out."

• 41:24Speaker 17

  So I'm starting to think about all the things that go wrong. What if I get decapitated by a suspension line? What if I get towed behind the aircraft? What if I hit some equipment on the ground? I was starting to immediately feel fear and apprehension.

• 41:44Speaker 17

  If we would've said something like, even slightly hesitant about being on a jump, it would've seemed suspicious. We call people who are not on jump status "legs," and that's a dirty word. I would rather have died than turn down being on a jump. I wasn't gonna be a leg, I was gonna jump.

• 42:03Speaker 17

  I looked at Ronnie and said, "Man, how you feel?" He said, "Man, I don't feel nothing, but this is bad anyway."

• 42:16Speaker 17

  When we were on the trucks headed to the pack shed, this is at the air force base, I started having this feeling right then and there that everybody on the truck was staring at me and I knew, oh, it's, it's starting to kick in now. We all pour inside the rigor shed, all 500 of us, and one at a time we're issued parachutes as we enter inside. Once you've got your parachute on and you got all your equipment hooked up, you stand in line for the jump master's inspection. Open your ripcord, protect it, flap, hold, squat, hold, recover, turn, bend, arch your

• 42:56Speaker 17

  back, tick, tap, tap, tap, tick, tap, tap, turn, turn, squat, hold. I actually started saying that out loud, you know, squat, hold, squat. I was just saying it because I thought I should. And then I started thinking, wait a minute, if I do that, people will think I'm high. But if I act like I'm not high, they'll think I'm high.

• 43:26Speaker 17

  Slowly, all the guys in line started getting their parachutes inspected and we take a seat. I wanted to sit down, but I kept standing up, I kept walking around, and that was unusual. I started to think about how many thousands of paratroopers have been in this building preparing for a jump and I was inspired to just yell out for everyone to hear, "How many paratroopers have been in this place?" I started thinking about, there were ghosts, maybe, still impregnated in the memories of the building and in the walls. And I yelled that question out too. "Are there any ghosts in the walls?" When I was startled by two, well, what looked to be two World War II-era paratroopers coming

• 44:10Speaker 17

  out of the walls. I couldn't help but walk closer to it, but on closer inspection, it was just a pattern of old paint scuffs on the wall.

• 44:21Speaker 17

  That's when I started to notice that other people were starting to stare at me, staring at them, and a few even laughed at me. And that's where I saw Ronnie. He was already rigged, sitting on the floor, crying, tears coming down his cheeks. To me, it was like a river of water. I asked Ronnie how he was doing. Ronnie looked at me, and he just started to cry, and people noticed. I went to him and I said in a soft, loud voice, "Man, get yourself together. You are an American paratrooper. Do you know what our brothers have done before you?

• 45:03Speaker 17

  Act like a damn man, get it together." And I started singing, and I'm not a singer, and I'm singing these corny airborne songs that they force on us. "Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die. Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die. Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die, and you ain't gonna jump no more." And I remember somebody yelled out, "Oh, that's pretty damn appropriate, Sergeant Christian. It's really appropriate." Ronnie stared. I reached out and I wiped his eye. A little tear was coming from it, and I helped him up. And then he assisted me in rigging my chute.

• 45:47Speaker 17

  Once everybody's inspected, we stand up and we all march out toward the back of the airplane. The only thing you could see inside a C-130 at night like that is this, the red jump light above the jump door and down on the floor, and there's this hum of the plane. Mmm. Usually the guy asleep, but I didn't. I was just focused on the light. I mean, it was beautiful. And the Air Force pilot turns on the green light, "Go."

• 46:30Speaker 17

  Door opened up and the wind rushed in. Normally, you really feel the impact of the prop blast hitting you and you twist into the night sky, but I don't know, I had this sensation that I just jumped into a big old marshmallow cloud and I just floated out.

• 46:53Speaker 17

  The stars were starting to twinkle. The moon smiled at me.

• 47:00Speaker 17

  There's parachutes billowing across the drop zone. They looked like ghosts. They were just floating and dancing and, uh...

• 47:10Speaker 17

  I could hear everything, every sound.

• 47:15Speaker 17

  Threw my arms out, looked up.

• 47:18Speaker 17

  Like Jesus.

• 47:20Speaker 17

  Started contemplating the nature of the universe.

• 47:26Speaker 17

  God, it was just beautiful. Probably the best jump I ever had. I loved it. Loved it. Seemed like it took me forever to reach the ground.

• 47:39Speaker 17

  I landed in a sandy pile amongst the pine trees and thickets. The guy landed close to me and he hit the ground like a sack of potatoes and he gave out a "Oh!" And I just yelled out across the whole drop zone, "This is beautiful!"

• 47:58Speaker 17

  And it just echoed and I know everybody heard that, but I couldn't help myself. It was beautiful like those other parachutes that were billowing across the drop zone. It looked like a woman in a dress.

• 48:17Speaker 17

  Through the darkness, I heard this sound and I recognized it as the sound of vomiting. And instead of going to the assembly area, I followed that sound and that led me to Sergeant Ronnie. And there he was, sitting on the ground, vomiting. And he was crying, softly. And I was thinking to myself, he must be having a bad trip. And that's when I decided I wanted to sing to him. We're all Americans and proud to be guardians of honor and liberty. Some flying gliders to the enemy, some come down as paratroopers.

• 49:02Speaker 17

  The next morning, when I woke up, the company commander, who I always try to avoid because of his manner, when he saw me, he said to me, "You know, you need to go see the battalion commander. He wants to talk to you about your behavior, pre-jump and on the drop zone." The battalion commander doesn't speak to me. People in my rank don't usually get a chance to talk to him. And I go into the battalion commander's office.

• 49:32Speaker 17

  All the senior officers in the battalion were present. That kind of a group usually means something bad. You're getting some kind of a ugly reprimand. And I was scared as hell.

• 49:46Speaker 17

  And he said, "Never have I seen such an unselfish act as a man motivating his fellow paratroopers, sticking with a scared, nervous man during every phase of the operation, even on the drop zone. Sergeant Christian, you are the personification of an American paratrooper. Keep up the good work. Airborne." I said, "Thank you, sir. Airborne."

• 50:18Speaker 17

  I can remember shaking my head as I was walking away from his office going, "Damn." I was completely dumbfounded. I, I, what just happened? It was like the blade didn't cut my head, but it fell.

• 50:38Speaker 17

  In the mornings, when all the units are doing physical training and they run up and down Ardennes Street, they're the loud speakers where they play nothing but non-stop military martial music. And these old airborne songs are the ones that you hear. And when they would come across the speakers, we would all start singing them really loud to Sergeant Ronnie, you know, much to his chagrin.

• 51:07Speaker 17

  Sergeant Ronnie, you was scared on the drop zone, man. Sergeant Ronnie, what's up? You lost your nerve? You was having problems, Sergeant Ronnie? And he'd be running with his butt cheeks really tight. He was too stiff and too anal to respond. Up to that point, everything, all of our encounters were always serious. We really didn't have anything to joke about. There was nothing funny. I had my boys back again. They were back in their spirit.

• 51:45Glynn Washington?

  Big thanks to Ray Christian, who is a storyteller living in Boone, North Carolina. Now do yourself a favor, subscribe to his podcast, What's Ray Saying? It'll be available on our website or wherever you get your podcasts, snapjudgment.org. Do that. The original score and sound design was by Leon Morimoto. That story was produced by Adisa Egan.

• 52:19Glynn Washington?

  Now it's about that time, and if you missed even a moment of Snap storytelling magic, you know what to do. Get the Snap Judgment Podcast wherever you get your podcasts. And all the things that are going on, I love to tell you what I really think. Hit me on the Instagram. We'll be new best friends. Snap Judgment is brought to you by the team that claps every single time the plane lands. Throw some peanuts at the Oop producer, Mr. Mark Ristich, Pat and Sydney Miller, Anna Sussman, Renzo Gorio, Sheena Shealy, Liz Mack, Elijah Smith, Leon Morimoto, Lauren Newsom, Marissa Dodge, Flo Wiley, Nancy Lopez, John Facio, Nikah Singh, Teyo Decott.

• 53:00Glynn Washington?

  And even though this is not the news, no way is this the news. In fact, you would sit next to the big star in first class on your next trip, pitch your script, have him say, "Yes!" Only to realize that, hey, hey, this is not first class. That guy doesn't even look like Matthew McConaughey, though he did promise to be right back with your luggage. And you would still, still, not be as far away from the news as this is. But this is PRX.