Female Reporter Confronts Man Who Allegedly Sexually Assaulted Her on Live TV

As Spain reels from gender-based violence, reporter Isa Balado has become a new face for the country’s #MeToo Movement after a man allegedly groped her on live TV

It’s happened to a lot of us women. We’re walking down the street minding our own business, when suddenly a man’s hand comes in direct contact with our butt. What do we do?

The answer became very clear to Isa Balado, a reporter for the Spanish broadcast Cuatro, who was allegedly assaulted while reporting a broadcast on live television earlier this month.

In the alleged assault caught on camera, a man in sunglasses walks past Balado, and, reaching behind her, appears to tap her butt. After that he asks her what channel she works for.

Balado paused her report — regarding surveillance footage of a theft at a convenience store — and holding the man by the arm, politely explained to him in Spanish: “Just a second, we’re live.”

She then patted the man’s chest, apologized to viewers for his disruption and relaunched into her original broadcast — only to be interrupted yet again, this time by her male program host, Nacho Abad.

“Isa, pardon me, I have to interrupt,” Abad said, as the reporter held her ear piece and smiled through yet another flustered moment.

“Did he touch your butt?” her colleague asked with concern.

Balado’s eyes widened with the question. “Yes,” she said, grimacing.

“This idiot!” Abad exclaimed. “Show me this idiot, please!”

Balado paused, brushed back her hair as if to ready herself, and confronted the man as the camera panned to get him in view.

“Even if you want to know what channel we’re on,” Balado advised the man still hanging around. “You really don’t need to touch my butt. I’m broadcasting live and I’m working.”

“I didn’t touch your butt,” the man countered, peering down at her from his sunglasses.

She sighed, and said, “Yes, you did it.”

“I didn’t mean to touch your butt,” the man said, waving his hands. “I respect you, okay? I didn’t want to touch your butt.”

“Vale, that’s enough.” she said. “Please, leave me to my work.”

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Balado, who did not respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment in time for publication, returned to her report on shoplifting, but that was not the end of her own crime story, which in the days that have followed have garnered support and outrage on social media on the reporter’s behalf, including from Yolanda Díaz, Spain’s Minister of Labor and Social Economy.

“Machismo is what causes journalists to have to suffer sexual assaults like this and why the aggressors are without any type of remorse in front of the camera,” she wrote on X (formerly Twitter). “It cannot go unpunished.” She concluded the post with the hashtag #SeAcabó, “It’s over,” a rallying call to the #MeToo movement in Spain.

Last week, the National Police announced the man’s arrest on Twitter, with a video of the man being escorted by two officers, including a woman, his hands cuffed behind his back.

Balado’s alleged attack came on the heels of an announcement by the country’s Ministry of Equality noting a Crisis Committee meeting “to analyze in detail the latest sexist murders.”

As of Sept. 1, at least 40 women have been murdered in gender-based attacks in 2023, CBS News reported.

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