Hilary Swank Apologizes After Mom on Make-A-Wish Trip With Ill Sons Shares Rude Encounter With the Star
Making assumptions before knowing the facts is usually not a good thing, and first reactions aren’t always correct.
Hilary Swank has owned up to her assumption after a mother traveling with her children on a Make-A-Wish trip to Disney posted about how the actress acted toward her at an airport.
Jada Bafus has two young, terminally ill sons, Mason and Jack. The family was headed to Disneyland for a Make-A-Wish trip when she ended up next to Swank at Los Angeles International Airport.
Bafus claimed that the Oscar winner snapped at her because she thought Bafus was trying to take a picture of her and her twins, Aya and Ohm.
The encounter caught Bafus off guard. She posted about it on Instagram, which led to commenters going after Swank on her page.
The post has since been deleted. However, according to the Daily Mail, Bafus explained, “At baggage claim, I was walking next to Hilary Swank. And I did a double-take on her because it’s Hilary Swank, and I am a fan of her movies and stuff. And then I took my phone out because I got distracted and was trying to find my Make-A-Wish kids and my husband.
“I was trying to call him, and I think I just took my phone out [at] the wrong time. She just thought I was taking a picture of her. She was having a bad day; she just said, ‘I hope you enjoy that picture.’ I just looked, like you know, ‘I was trying to call my husband. I wasn’t taking a picture.’ She just stormed off.”
Mason and Jack’s mom added, “It just hurt my feelings because I was starting Make-A-Wish trip, which she wouldn’t have known. But just one of those situations where it was one of my first encounters with a celebrity … We just don’t know what others are going through, and I was just a stressed mom trying to navigate LAX.”
Bafus’s husband, Bryan, was stunned by Swank’s reaction to his wife. He said, “I think when you’re in that type of — I guess that’s your job on getting filmed in that type of stuff. I feel like it shouldn’t be out of the realm to have your picture taken … so to have like, to snap back at anybody when you’re in that profession is kind of like work, I don’t know — it is what it is. We’re not upset at her … It was unexpected at the start of our trip.”
Following the incident, Bafus says that Swank reached out to her personally via social media and apologized for her behavior. She said she was worried her twins were being photographed.
The Million Dollar Baby actor welcomed her son and daughter in 2023. She has never shared photos of their faces publicly.
Bafus’ two sons have Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, an incurable genetic disorder characterized by progressive muscle weakening. It causes skeletal and heart muscle weakening that worsens over time. Symptoms are usually present in early childhood, with a median life expectancy into the late 20s.
