The woman recorded going on a racist rant at a man and his family on a United Airlines shuttle bus has now claimed she was provoked – and blamed her actions on brain injury.
Arlene Bunch, 64, has been unmasked after being filmed unleashing a hateful tirade against photographer Pervez Taufiq, his wife, and their three children in Los Angeles last week.
Taufiq told DailyMail.com that Bunch started making racist comments toward his son during their flight, but the situation escalated when she told his kids ‘shut up’ while they were all on the shuttle.
However, Bunch has since defended her actions – insisting she is not racist and calling the incident a series of escalations that started because the Taufiqs called her ‘white trash.’
She was recorded sticking both her middle fingers up at Taufiq calling him ‘f*****g crazy’ and ‘tandoori stinky a**.’
Bunch, a real estate broker licensed by the state of California who nearly died in a propane explosion last year, gave her side of the story of Fox 11.
‘[Taufiq] pushed me to the side to get in front of me and the lady made him go back to the end of the line and he’s talking to his wife, “supposedly they are first class. Obviously, with no class and look at the way they’re dressed… they’re white trash,” Bunch said.
‘[They were] aggressive when we loaded the shuttle. He looks over to me and says “shut your big f*****g mouth you white trash b***h” and then my husband steps in.
‘None of this is in the video. And most people know me as a very kind, calm person, but since the brain injury, I can get agitated very easily.’
The incident the ‘Karen’ is referring to occurred on March 22, 2023 when, Bunch was injured in an explosion at the Val D’Isere Condominiums in the mountain town of Mammoth Lakes.
Bunch went to turn on the stove to make breakfast when a propane leak caused the stove to blow up, according to a GoFundMe set up for her.
‘Arlene, who was in the face of the blast, was thrown 20 feet from the home and buried under 15 feet of rubble,’ the fundraiser said.
‘In addition to burns to her face, chest and arms, she sustained several large lacerations, a punctured lung, a fractured rib, a fractured sternum, a fractured vertebra, and a shattered foot. There isn’t a part of her body that wasn’t affected.’
She told local newspaper The Sheet that she was left with a traumatic brain injury and a stutter because the explosion tore off the surface of her lip.
‘It’s bizarre, at my age, to have nothing. Everything I ever had – every picture, every memory… it’s surreal,’ Bunch said.
‘I tell everyone I love them because I’m so grateful. That’s my whole new attitude. It’s so bizarre, because I look at everyone, and everyone is so precious – just to be alive, you know? I spend more time talking to strangers… I feel like I’m a brand new baby in a sense of fascination with life itself and people that are alive and, really, where do we go in the end?’
Taufiq said the family got one free business upgrade for their flight and decided to give it to their 11-year-old son.
At one point Taufiq, seated three rows behind his child, went up to check on him and that is when he first interacted with the woman.
‘I was there maybe three seconds, and some lady comes up from behind me who’s coming from the bathroom and she says, “Can I get to my seat?” And I’m like “yes, of course” and I moved aside,’ he said.
‘She gets into her seat and she’s muttering under her breath. I didn’t think anything of it at the time.’
After the plane landed and they were being ushered to the shuttle, Taufiq’s son revealed Bunch asked him uncomfortable questions during the flight.
‘When we left the plane my son starts telling me, “Hey, so that lady was asking me are you Indian and I said yes, and then she asked me if I’m from New Delhi and I said no, I’m from Bombay,”‘ Taufiq said.
On the shuttle, Taufiq recording Bunch saying, ‘Your family is from India, you have no respect for the rules, you think you can push everyone… that’s what you think you are. You guys are f*****g crazy.
‘I’m going to record your f******g tandoori a**.. your tandoori stinky a**.’
He asked security to have her removed before Bunch interrupted saying, ‘She doesn’t care that I’m a racist, you’re racist towards me. I’m American.’
‘So are we,’ he replied.
‘You’re not American,’ Bunch insisted. ‘Not originally no, you’re from f*****g India.’
‘I was born in America,’ Taufiq said.
‘No you weren’t, that’s not on your passport,’ she replied. Taufiq said, ‘Yeah, you want to see my passport? Is that going to make you happy?’
A United employee came on the shuttle and started talking to Bunch as other riders shouted asking her to take her off the bus.
United wouldn’t tell Taufiq what discussions she had with the airline, suggesting instead they take it up with the FBI.
‘I had gone to the bathroom for a second they were talking to my wife, and they were saying like, “Oh, they were going to arrest her and there were five cops there and that they’re going to put her on the no fly list.”
‘But then I tried calling them just to see what had happened, but we don’t know. They can’t tell us.
‘We’re going to file something with the FBI, because realistically it started in the air and technically that’s their space. That’s what the United People basically told us.’
DailyMail.com has contacted Bunch and United Airlines for comment.
