Blue singer Lee Ryan has been found guilty of racially aggravated assault after telling a black cabin crew member ‘I want your chocolate children’ and asking her to kiss him while he was drunk on a British Airways flight from Glasgow to London in July last year.

As reported by the BBC, Ryan had drunk a bottle of port in the airport lounge before boarding and making the comments to the crew member. She told Ealing Magistrates’ Court that he later approached her from behind and said: “Before I get off this plane I need a kiss from you.”

When she told him to ‘stay away’, he grabbed both her wrists, prompting other passengers to intervene. She added:

‘He was making comments about my complexion, “You’re my chocolate darling, my chocolate cookie”, and “I’m going to have your chocolate children”.’

A tearful Ryan told the court it was only ‘banter’:

‘I’m sorry. My band member is black, I’m not racist, I’ve had black girlfriends, mixed-race girlfriends. It was banter, just drunk banter I suppose, there was no malice or intention to upset anyone.’

I didn’t mean to cause any distress to anyone or be racist, it was just a poor choice of words I suppose.

I am sorry that I touched her, but that’s all I did, touch her lightly, by her admission.’

A different flight attendant said she had been approached by Ryan shortly after the plane took off, and he had asked to be upgraded from economy to business class. On a one hour flight? You bet:

In the end, Ryan was found guilty of being drunk on an aircraft, assaulting a police officer by biting him, racially aggravated common assault and behaving in an abusive way towards the cabin crew member. I’m sure in his mind it was all banter at the time, but he was pretty hammered to be fair. Still, that’s no excuse for harassing a woman and putting your hands on her. I wonder if he at least managed a little chuckle when the judge entered and they said, ‘all rise’?

For the backlash Lee faced while pushing Covid conspiracy theories a couple years back, click HERE.