HGTV Star Addresses Fans After Airport Security Search: ‘Very Embarrassed’

Heavy A woman stands with her carry-on suitcase at a window overlooking parked planes.

While heading home after filming a new competition show with HGTV, investment expert and interior designer Galey Alix of “Home in a Heartbeat” was stopped by airport security after a zipper on her jeans set off the scanning equipment. What happened next was so “invasive,” she said, that it left her stunned.

Alix, 30, posted a video from the airport in her Instagram Stories on February 23, 2024, to share the ordeal and issue a warning to her 1.7 million Instagram fans.

“Guys, if they ask you if you want a private room for a pat down, say yes,” she warned, explaining that if she had done so, it could have saved her from a very uncomfortable situation.

Here’s what you need to know:

HGTV’s Galey Alix Ran Into Trouble at the Airport After Filming New Show

HGTVGaley Alix of the HGTV series “Home in a Heartbeat”

Alix, who lives in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, has been in North Carolina filming “100 Day Hotel Challenge,” a just-announced competition show in which married HGTV stars Mika and Brian Kleinschmidt will compete against each other, backed by teams of network talent as they each transform a boutique beachfront hotel in less than 100 days.

As part of Mika’s team of HGTV celebrities, Alix was spotted filming the show on social media, including a video posted on February 23 by “Luxe for Less” star Michel Smith Boyd, who’s also on Mika’s celebrity designer team. Once filming wrapped for the week, Alix headed to the airport.

But right after going through security, Alix recorded and uploaded a selfie video, saying shakily, “I just had a pat down you wouldn’t believe.”

Wearing her trademark ballcap, the designer said that the front zipper on her jeans had triggered the scanner and a female security agent came over to her to conduct the pat down, which is standard procedure for TSA agents.

Alix explained, “The lady was like, ‘Hey, I’m gonna have to do a really extensive pat down. Do you want a private room?’ And I was like, ‘No, it’s fine. I’m sure it’ll be quick.’ I was wrong. And I was very embarrassed.”

Explaining just how extensive the pat down was, Alix said, “So basically, she proceeded to run her hands all the way up my thighs (and) touched me, like, ‘down there’ maybe five times, going up and down and then around the back.”

Wearing her signature ball cap, Alix continued, “And then in front of everybody — like, it was crowded with people going through security — (she) lifted up my shirt, put her hands down the front of my pants and ran it all around, maybe twice. And then went to the back and then put her hands down (there), and then did it all the way around to the front.”

Airport Security Search Was So Extensive, HGTV’s Galey Alix Said Fellow Travelers Came Up to Check On Her

Clearly surprised by how intimate the airport search had been, Alix said that fellow travelers who had witnessed the whole scene approached her afterward to let her know how invasive it had seemed. The first man who came up to her even apologized for the way she was treated.

Alix recalled, “He’s like, ‘I’m so sorry, I don’t know what that was. I’ve been traveling for 30 years and I’ve never seen that kind of pat down.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, that felt a little invasive!'”

Another man, she said, told her he’d seen the agent lift her shirt up and that he wouldn’t have wanted that to happen him. Saying she was trying to “shrug it off,” Alix told fans it was hard knowing “everybody just kind of saw my stomach and her hands down my pants.”

Later, seated on the plane, Alix added another video in her Stories with a note for the many fans who sent direct messages, concerned about her after watching her explanation of the security search. Rather than speak out loud in the video, she wrote her message over footage of her holding a stuffed animal named Squishy.

“Thanks for all your sweet messages,” Alix wrote. “Promise we are good! I shared mostly to advise taking a private room if security offers it for THAT level of ‘pat down’! And to answer q’s…the reason she touched my V so many times was because I guess the zipper on my jeans is right there. So that’s where the security ‘red zone’ was that she needed to pat down…repeatedly. 🙈”

Alix is no stranger to airport security, between her shoots for HGTV and travel for her other job, as a Vice President at financial firm Goldman Sachs, per her IMDb.

She’ll likely have to return to North Carolina to film more with Mika’s team in the coming weeks and she is also part of the new “House Hunters: All Stars” series that HGTV announced on February 22. Also, though the network hasn’t officially announced a second season of her series, she gave fans many hints in October that she was back to filming the show.