Teen News

Ms. Diamandis told reporters that the customs agent said she’d misspelled her first name on the declaration by leaving out the “d” and that she’d responded that there is no “d” in Marina. “He said that the name on the passport I’d shown him was ‘Miranda’ like his cousin’s, and I said, ‘No it isn’t,’ and I had to spend another four minutes searching through my bag to find where I’d put it when I thought I was done with it, and when he saw it again he asked, ‘Why did you originally say your name was Miranda?’ and I said that I’d never told him my name was Miranda, and he said again that I had, that I’d agreed that I had the same name as his cousin, and I said that I had agreed to no such thing, all I’d said was ‘That’s nice’ when he said that I had the same name as her and that I looked like her too except I was even prettier, but he said that I’d gone along with him in this and I said that I had no idea what his cousin’s actual name was, whether it was Marina or Miranda or what, and he wanted to know if I knew it was against the law to make false statements to a customs agent, and I said I hadn’t made a false statement.” According to Ms. Diamandis, the agent then asked her if her parents had named her Marina after a wharf or a pier, and she’d told him the name was Greek; he then asked why she was using an English passport if she was Greek, and she told him that that she wasn’t Greek, that Britain was where she was born and where she lives. “I was afraid to tell him that I was Welsh not English because I thought he’d accuse me of lying again or tell me that Wales wasn’t part of the UK and that my passport wasn’t legal.” She said that he recommended she visit the Santa Monica pier and that she’d replied that she would love to and that she loved the Los Angeles area. “This is true,” she told the press, “But I have to say, guys who work at the Airport are really weird.”

The customs agent could not be located for comment.