As a private jet flight attendant, I've come across A-list actors and musicians, CEOs, billionaires and nasty nepo-babies. I've seen them at their best and, trust me, I've seen them at their worst – and had to do the clean up after. The one thing everyone always wants to know, is what it was really like flying with the absurdly rich and famous. Well, put bluntly, it's like babysitting a different dysfunctional family every night, where half the kids are sadistic egotists with black Amex cards. Across almost 10 years in the skies, I've experienced physical violence - being tossed headfirst into the bulkhead by a she-demon in a pantsuit - and I've been propositioned by pilots and passengers alike. Looking back, the red flags started fluttering before I'd even taken my first flight. There were two events that catapulted me into private aviation. First, a fire rendered my New York apartment uninhabitable in 2015. Second, the company where I was an aesthetics trainer downsized. At 32, newly jobless and homeless, I took my Florida friends up on an invitation to visit. They suggested I become a flight attendant, although the consensus was that I wouldn't last an hour flying commercial. A few well-manicured click-clacks on their keyboard turned up a corporate flight attendant school in Fort Lauderdale. It took just six days (and the last of my savings) but poof - I was qualified. The school suggested I scour LinkedIn for contacts in private aviation and, to my delight, it worked. But it was a rocky start. The first job I was offered was unique. Over the course of three increasingly revealing phone interviews for the position, I discovered getting hired in this instance was contingent on acquiescing to a very specific set of demands. Let's call them sexpectations. The client was an 'extremely religious', married man and a pious voyeur. He wanted his new hire to get intimate with his famous girlfriends while he watched. But only during the trips when his wife wasn't present, of course. I was assured that I wouldn't have to have sex with the client himself - he was far too devout for that - but the pilot would be tagged in. I would also need to convincingly enjoy my sexcapades with the women. 'He'll know if you're faking it,' the interviewer told me. I thanked them for the opportunity and respectfully declined. No judgement against sex work - I'm just not a great actress. Nor am I doing two full-time jobs for the one salary. As I was new to the industry and not with an agency yet, LinkedIn was the ideal place to network with pilots for potential opportunities. Pilots routinely need flight attendants last minute, which is a great way to get in front of them. If you're easy to work with and the crew likes you, they'll refer you to other pilots and agencies like Executive Jet Management, who run NetJets. If you're lucky, you'll find a client who owns their jet and stay forever. One job I did take (but wished I'd turned down) involved an international client who owned a fleet of planes. His primary Flight Attendant briefed me on what to expect. She told me this man's level of comfort was directly correlated to whether he could take his pants off. The tighty-whitey parade was apparently essential for his optimum enjoyment. And she told me that the restroom would need attention directly after his usage. I didn't find out until later that this client sprayed neon-yellow urine on every part of the bathroom except the toilet - like a feral cat marking its territory. So much for glamour, but there were so many other offences that outranked that, ranging from the bonkers to the downright offensive. For instance, I was once told I'd 'ruined' someone's hot water with a side of lemon because - wait for it - the water was hot. Another client insisted a lemon be thrown away for being cut into the wrong number of pieces. They declared it 'abominable', ignored all attempts to explain that it was the only lemon on board, then freaked out when a second one couldn't be miraculously produced. One CEO's schtick was pretending to stumble up the last few stairs to the plane, 'lose his balance,' and use his flight attendant's breasts as mid-air flotation devices. I lost count of the times he turned his stumble-grab into an awkward, full-body grope as he slid by, grinning an insincere apology. And if you thought air-rage was confined to commercial flights, think again. Filed under 'I do not get paid enough for this' are the physical threats I received during my career. It wasn't always the primary client who was the problem. One of my former favorite icons-turned-swamp-monster had a particularly insufferable assistant. I will never forget being confronted by this bellowing man-child on one early morning flight when he repeatedly threatened to punch me in my 'f***ing face' if his breakfast sandwich was served at the wrong temperature. He was massive, easily 200lbs heavier than me and standing some 7ft tall to my 5ft 9in frame. He was someone I'd flown too many times to count and part of an entourage whose members I'd come to know well. But not one of them intervened or said a word to him about it in the aftermath. They just silently watched. Then there was the A-lister whose shiny new girlfriend joined him for a 45-minute flight and all-but stole the food right out of my mouth. The star client had repeatedly insisted that a standard basket of snacks would suffice for the brief trip. He was clear: there was to be no meal on board. But, minutes after levelling off, his starving girlfriend proceeded to steal, then devour, my lunch - right in front of me. If either of them felt even a twinge of guilt they didn't show it. I'm sure it will come as a surprise to most to hear that flight attendants are regularly expected to subsidize the lifestyles of the rich and famous – at least temporarily. As the only flight attendant on board, I often had to pay out of pocket for the entirety of the inflight catering order, which could run anywhere from $500-$10,000. It would routinely take weeks for me to be reimbursed and even then, the money often only trickled down after a condescending office drone explained why I'd have to eat the cost for this line item, or that last-minute expense. Sometimes the shortfall would amount to an entire day's pay (which was around $600-$850). Oh, and if you're wondering about that she-demon in the pantsuit? She claimed she had no choice but to Heisman me into the bulkhead because I was stepping too close to her 150lb rescue dog. When I stood up, she told me I deserved it. Despite it all, I must admit that I drank the Kool-Aid for the most part. More than that, I encouraged others to do the same. I recruited friends, family and many a stranger to join the ranks. Why? Because I loved that job. Who wouldn't love travelling the world to bucket list destinations and dream vacations at five-star resorts on someone else's dime? It was a brilliant adventure of a job, until a series of events conspired to change that. First, an owner who had recruited me to work for him for the better part of two years, cornered me on the jet to discuss a potential full-time position if I'd accept his terms. He asked my salary expectations almost immediately. After telling him I was at $120,000, he began blithering on that he was contemplating buying a brand new $60 million Gulfstream and he wanted to give lil' ole me the honor of setting up the sparkling new jet for his family. In the next breath, he asked me to give up my beloved New York apartment in favor of housing near Teterboro airport, some 45 minutes outside Manhattan in New Jersey. He wanted me to move so he 'could pay me less' and told me that he needed to be frugal - because he was buying a new jet. It took months of annoying negotiating and interviewing and finally culminated in the pandemic swiftly terminating their offer of employment. But the final straw was when I was recruited by a pilot who worked for a billionaire. He offered me a five-day trip, which soon shrank to three days, then was further condensed into a 20-hour trip spanning two days and a full prep day. Yet the pilot only wanted to pay me for one day of work and, when I pushed back, he fought me - hard. He went after me personally, claiming people like me don't want to work and want to 'live off the government'. Professionally, he never called me again and refused to let the other two pilots on his crew use me either. He single-handedly dried up one of my major revenue streams. That petty pilot was more than I could bear. He acted as if it was his own money and I simply wasn't worth paying in full. And just like that, the magic of the job dissolved. Now, when people ask me about the craziest thing I experienced working for the wealthiest people on the planet, that's the moment that comes to mind. Because the abiding lesson I have taken with me from all my years and adventures in the skies is that money doesn't change people, it just amplifies the qualities they already possess. If you're a kind-hearted soul who loves to laugh, your high-altitude dad jokes will be a whole lot funnier. But, if you're a vile human succubus with no respect for others, cruising at 40,000 ft, your sense of entitlement rises to meet it. The Mile High Club: Confessions of a Private Jet Flight Attendant by Danielle Styron and James Styron is published by Post Hill Press