Ellen Pompeo Reveals TSA Stopped Her And Called Bomb Squad Over Snack She Tried To Bring On Flight

Which of these items would you guess would make it past airport security: a bag of sunflower seeds or a rotisserie chicken?

If you guessed sunflower seeds, you would be wrong.

One woman managed to board a plane with an entire rotisserie chicken, and she was able to eat the entire thing on her folded-down tray table during the flight.

But Grey's Anatomy's Dr. Meredith Grey, Ellen Pompeo, tried to board with an unopened, new bag of sunflower seeds from Erewhon, and was delayed for over an hour—and inspected by a bomb squad.

During an interview with Travel + Leisure, the actress dished about the problematic snack.

“I had a bag of sunflower seeds, like organic sunflower seeds from Erewhon, so they were probably the most expensive sunflower seeds money can buy."

But those working in the security check line were committed to checking the seeds. Maybe too committed.

"They literally held me for an hour, and they brought the bomb squad in."

"I was like, ‘What is happening? Is this a joke?’"

"They said it was most likely a chemical on the packaging of these super expensive, fancy, organic, clean sunflower seeds. My protein on the plane!"

Pompeo was understandably flabbergasted by how the incident played out.

"I almost missed the flight."

"It was really like, no one would ever believe this! I was texting my publicist saying, 'I might not get on this plane, and you're never gonna guess why.'"

Twitter (X) users were shocked by how much the situation escalated and side-eyed the TSA.

Pompeo was able to catch her flight just in time, so she didn't have to change her plans. She might find herself depending on the airline's supply of snacks from now on, just to get through the security checkpoint a little bit faster.