Ellen Pompeo gets honest about her harrowing travel experience

Ellen Pompeo has recently opened up about her harrowing airport security experience she had in March.

The Grey’s Anatomy star was stopped by TSA in March while she was trying to board a plane with a bag of Erewhon sunflower seeds.

In a new interview with Travel + Leisure, Ellen revealed she “had a bag of sunflower seeds, like organic sunflower seeds from Erewhon, so they were probably the most expensive sunflower seeds money can buy”.

After security check, the Good American Family actress mentioned that the security team held her for an hour, and they brought the bomb squad in.

When Ellen asked the officials, “What is happening? Is this a joke?” They replied that it “was most likely a chemical on the packaging of these super expensive, fancy, organic, clean sunflower seeds” that triggered the search.

Interestingly, the Old school alum thought about simply throwing the bag in the trash.

However, Ellen mentioned that they told her she’d have to wait for the bomb squad to confirm the unopened bag of seeds was secure before being released.

“I almost missed the flight,” recounted the 55-year-old.

The Art Heist actress further said, “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.’”

Elsewhere in the interview, Ellen told the outlet that she still loves to travel with her family.

The actress, who shares three children with her husband, music producer Chris Ivery, added, “I like to hold my kids' hands when I take off which is probably a little selfish, and they're probably feeling my anxiety, which probably isn't the best thing to do.”