Nikki Blonsky: Airport Brawl Left Me 'Destroyed'

Nikki Blonsky says she lives “every day in pain” since the July 30 fight involving the family of Bianca Golden, a former contestant on America’s Next Top Model.

Speaking for the first time about the brawl, the Hairspray actress, 19, tells PEOPLE that she and her father Carl are “completely destroyed” by the incident.

“The hardest part for me is to see my parents walk around in severe upset and sadness,” she says.

The fight erupted at the Providenciales International Airport, where the Blonsky family was waiting to fly home from a Caribbean vacation in the Turks and Caicos. Blonsky says that the Golden family – including Bianca, her mother Elaine and her brother George – grew angry when some passengers were saving seats in the departure area.

Things took a nasty turn, she says, when she asked Bianca not to point her finger in her face. “That’s when she stood up, pulled her arm all the way back and said, ‘F— you, you white b—-.’ And she closed her fist and punched me,” says Blonsky.

Golden – whose mother, Elaine, had to be airlifted to a hospital for her injuries – gave a very different account, telling Tyra Banks that Nikki kicked her mother in the groin and that Carl punched her mom in the face.

“Absolute lies,” says Nikki.

Nikki, Carl and Bianca all face assault charges related to the fight.

For more on this story, pick up the new issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday

• By Michelle Tauber