Nick Viall’s Wife Natalie Joy Confronts Woman on Plane Who Texted About Their 15-Month-Old Daughter

Nick Viall and Natalie Joy had a run-in with a judgmental plane passenger on a recent flight they took with their 15-month-old daughter.

Joy, 26, detailed the confrontation on “The Viall Files” podcast on Wednesday, May 28, explaining that she and Viall, 44, had just boarded business class on a flight out of LAX airport when she spotted a woman texting about their daughter, River Rose.

“We’ve not left the gate, and I clocked the woman in front of me. Y’all know I love an eavesdrop phone read on an airplane,” Joy began, noting that River was in a “talkative” mood but not crying or anything.

“So the woman in front of me, who I thought, honestly, was going to be quite nice because we made eye contact as we were boarding. So I read on her phone, the first thing I see is, ’18-month-old in business class.’ And I’m like, ‘Oh, here we go.’”

Joy continued: “She goes to a different group chat and she starts typing to her friends, … ‘There’s some young couple behind me in business class with their around [1]-year-old kid screaming up a storm. The kind of people who think it’s cute. They need to learn how to quiet their kid down… the poor woman next to me is trying to work.’”

Viall, 44, chimed in, “What are we supposed to do? Punish [her]? Put [her] in a corner? Should we ask her nicely?”

Joy mentioned the woman incorrectly spelled “their” — “t-h-e-r-e” — in her text, so she made sure to point the error out when she built up the courage to confront her.

“As she’s finishing her text, I lean up and tap her on the shoulder, and I said, ‘It’s t-h-e-i-r. Their kid, not there,’” Joy said, with Viall adding he had “no idea this was going on” but he heard her discuss the spelling error with the woman.

Joy said the woman asked her if she was peeking at her screen, to which she replied, “Are you texting about my kid?”

“She kind of, like, huffs and puffs and turns, and then she brings out her phone, same level, same brightness, same text size, and starts going, ‘She just confronted me about a spelling error. She’s reading my text from behind me. LOL. I respect it.’”

Turns out the lady was “impressed” by Joy’s response to the situation, which she noted could’ve been remedied if the woman turned down the brightness on her phone and minimized her text size.

On the Thursday, May 29, episode of “The Viall Files,” the couple reacted to the response to the story, with Joy saying some people were “more mad at me for reading the text than for the woman talking s*** on my kid.”

Despite the comments about business class being for work, Viall explained, “Having a kid makes you more empathetic in every aspect of life. The way you see other parents on a flight, and you just want to help them. When I see a mom with a child coming on a plane, I’m just waiting for an opportunity to help her with her bag. I don’t want to be intrusive … but yeah, it’s difficult.”

Joy and Viall welcomed River in February 2024, two months before they tied the knot in April 2024. Since then, they have detailed their painful journey to expand their family — with Joy recently experiencing two miscarriages.

“Spent yesterday away from my phone but overwhelmed by the love I woke up to,” Joy wrote via Instagram in March after sharing news of her second loss. “Thanks for hanging on with us, we’ll get our rainbow baby one day I’m sure of it.”