Spanish reporter gets groped on live TV, channel calls the police on assaulter. Video

Stills from the alleged sexual assault that occurred on live TV. (Image credit: @WarpaintJournal/X)

A Spanish television journalist was allegedly groped by a man while she was live on air for a broadcaster reporting a robbery in Madrid. Caught on camera, the video showed a man appearing to touch her bottom as he passed by. The incident has sparked outrage among people.

Reporter Isa Balado initially did not confront the man but when the TV presenters in the newsroom asked her if the man had just groped her, she said yes, and encouraged by her colleagues, Balado stood up to the man.

"As much as you want to ask which channel we are from, did you have to touch my butt? I'm doing a live show and I'm working," the journalist is seen asking the man who lingered after the alleged assault. To which the man replied: "I didn't touch your butt."

He then apologised before ruffling the reporter's hair.

An incident where a Spanish journalist was groped by a man while she was reporting live on TV and people are apalled and furious pic.twitter.com/wdqrBA4MrQ

— Warpaint Journal (@WarpaintJournal) September 14, 2023

As Balado apologised for the disrupting in the live, the TV presenter said: “No, you have nothing to feel sorry for. It makes me so mad,” he added.

After sometime, Balado said the man was still roaming in the streets around her and it was happening to every woman by whom he passed, prompting the news organisation to call the police on him. He was soon arrested.

The incident has sparked renewed anger in Spain amid an ongoing sexism row in the fallout of former Spanish Football Association president Luis Rubiales kissing world cup winner Jenni Hermoso without his consent.

Mediaset Espana, which owns the television channel, said in a statement as reported by the Independent: “We fully support Isa Balado, reporter for En Boca de Todos, after the absolutely intolerable situation she has suffered today.”

Also commenting on the incident, Spain's acting equality minister Irene Mantero wrote on X: “What until now was ‘normal’ is no longer so. Non-consensual touching is sexual violence and we say enough to impunity.”

Lo que hasta ahora era “normal” ya no lo es. #SeAcabó es el grito de nuestro país para garantizar el derecho a la libertad sexual de todas las mujeres. Los tocamientos no consentidos son violencia sexual y decimos basta a la impunidad. Todo mi apoyo a @IsaBalado. Solo sí es sí

— Irene Montero (@IreneMontero) September 12, 2023

Yolanda Diaz, the acting labour minister and second deputy prime minister blamed machismo for the assault and demanded punishment for the accused.