Michele Tafoya reponds to airplane letter drama after social media eruption

Former NFL reporter Michele Tafoya responded to those who trolled her Tuesday for reposting an old tweet that showed a complimentary note she received from a flight attendant back in 2023.

Upon re-sharing the note this week, Tafoya — who left her job as a veteran NFL sideline reporter with NBC in 2022 to enter politics — was called out by fellow sports media personalities and X users, with a community note being tagged alongside her message to make it clear it wasn’t a recent post.

“I will forever be grateful to the flight attendant who handed me this note back in 2023,” Tafoya wrote on Wednesday. “It meant the world to me then, and it still does. So in honor of all the people who think it’s strange that I would re-post a meaningful photo, here it is again.”

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The fallout from Tafoya’s re-share on Tuesday was swift, as some believed the note was presented as new.

“The welpiest WELP I ever did welp,” sports reporter Sarah Spain posted on X in response to a tweet to Tafoya that read, “Michele, how many times is this exact same flight attendant gonna hand you this exact same note.”

Trey Wingo commented, “I love it when absolute frauds like @Michele_Tafoya get found out.”

Tafoya explained Wednesday that she recently came across the note while cleaning.

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“I ran across the photo of the note while cleaning out my photos, @ChrisOrlandoHS … It still means a lot to me. And I’m still grateful to the person who wrote it. But you’re entitled to perceive it any way you like. Have a great day,” she wrote.

When one X user remarked, “Are we really going to start calling out all the times people repost things???” Tafoya replied Thursday, “Apparently some people are just that petty.”

Tafoya left her post at NBC Sports for politics after Super Bowl 2022.

“I got to a point in my life where I wanted to try other things, and there are some things that are really important to me,” Tafoya told The Athletic at the time. “This is not to say that sports isn’t an important field, that my job isn’t an important job. But in my position, I was not as free to be as vocal about world events that I’m concerned about.

“It’s not because I was told to shut up. I want to be very clear about that. But look, if you’re on a show like ‘Sunday Night Football,’ which is the No. 1 show in prime time for 11 straight years, unprecedented, the last thing they want to do is invite controversy.”