Rihanna praises 'very special' gift from Mohawk flight attendant on Toronto-Montreal route
· Toronto Sun
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It’s not every day you encounter a superstar on a plane.
For Air Canada flight attendant Lily Kahnerahtiio Dailleboust, it was a chance meeting with singer Rihanna aboard a flight from Toronto’s Billy Bishop airport to Montreal’s Pierre Elliott Trudeau.
Dailleboust, from the Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) community in Montreal, gifted the “Diamonds” hitmaker a beaded lanyard and even gave her a language lesson.
“This sweet lady gifted me with something very special that I will never forget and I will never lose,” said Rihanna, in a video posted on Facebook . “Thank you so much.”
“In our language we say ‘Niá:wen,’ which means thank you,” Dailleboust told Rihanna.
“Niá:wen,” Rihanna said.
What the flight attendant said of encounter
The “SOS” singer was travelling to Montreal to see her husband A$AP Rocky perform as part of his “Don’t Be Dumb World Tour” at the Bell Centre.
In an interview with CTV News , Dailleboust said Rihanna was friendly and offered a photograph or autograph.
“I’m still shocked,” she said. “I’m still kind of processing, it’s a big thing, and it’s really something that she was so down to earth and really accommodating.”
Dailleboust told Global News : “You don’t even know how to react because it’s not my first time having a VIP, but on a small airplane from Billy Bishop, like the Dash-8 Q400, it’s just a regular aircraft, there’s no business class, there’s no separation.”
The flight attendant said Rihanna was seated in the crew seats in the back of the aircraft to be more comfortable and have privacy.
After introducing herself, Dailleboust said she offered Rihanna water and said she’d provide the singer with anything she needed.
Got permission from singer’s bodyguard
Dailleboust said she asked Rihanna’s bodyguard if she could give the singer a gift. She said she took out the lanyard and said, “Oh, I just wanted to offer you a gift.”
“You know in my culture we’re very giving. When somebody or something is very significant or meaningful, we want to offer you something so I gave it to her. She was so happy,” said Dailleboust.
The Air Canada personnel told CTV News that the company has a policy to respect VIP guests and not to approach them out of context. However, she said chatting with Rihanna “was so organic.”
“It was just like talking to one of my friends that I’ve had for 10 years. It was just like such an easy flow conversation,” Dailleboust said. “We joked around a little bit about other things.”