Related video surpasses 4 million views, receiving a flood of support
A Canadian female reporter delivered a sharp rebuke to a male viewer who repeatedly made disparaging remarks about her appearance during a live broadcast.
On the 8th (local time), The Washington Post (WP) reported that Leslie Horton (59), a traffic reporter for Global News Calgary in Canada, fired back during a live broadcast at a viewer who criticized her body by asking, "Are you pregnant?"
According to the report, Horton, who was hosting a morning traffic broadcast on the 29th of last month, received an email from a viewer during the commercial break saying, "Congratulations on your pregnancy."
Right after the commercial break, Horton responded, "I want to reply to the email I just received that said 'Congratulations on your pregnancy,'" and confessed, "I am not pregnant. In fact, I lost my uterus last year due to cancer."
She added, "This is what women my age look like. If you felt uncomfortable because of this, that is unfortunate," and emphasized, "Think about the emails you send."
In an interview with WP, she explained, "The words just suddenly came out of my mouth. I neither planned nor prepared for it. It just came directly from my soul." She confessed, "I wanted to emphasize that this is how I look and that there is no need to be ashamed of my appearance."
Horton, a professional broadcaster with 35 years of experience, explained that she had been receiving rude emails from the same man for the past four years, and that it was not uncommon for her or her colleagues to receive such emails.
She said, "All of my female colleagues and I experience this," and added, "There have even been times when we received inappropriate messages in a threatening manner."
This particular email hit harder than previous ones. Horton felt that "the sender seemed to know that I was diagnosed with endometrial cancer in 2021 and had a hysterectomy in February last year."
She explained, "The intention of that email was to shame me and make me feel bad about myself and my body," and said, "That is why I could not just ignore this incident."
Horton's actions received great applause from fellow broadcasters as well as viewers. The video of her live broadcast posted on X (formerly Twitter) has surpassed 4 million views so far, with a flood of supportive and encouraging comments.
Excessive Standards on Female Presenters' Appearance in Korea as Well
There have been cases where female presenters in Korea have also drawn attention for their appearance. MBC announcer Lim Hyun-joo attracted unexpected attention in 2018 on 'News Today' for wearing glasses. She revealed on MBC's 'Golden Fishery - Radio Star' in 2020 that she received many contacts from foreign media worldwide and gained significant attention both domestically and internationally.
Additionally, in 2020, Lim Hyun-joo appeared on MBC's 'Series M,' which addressed the topic 'Do we really have to wear bras?' Along with two other women, she shared her experience of 'No Bra Day.' This sparked explosive interest, maintaining the number one spot on real-time search rankings on portal sites for several days, and some netizens even left excessively malicious comments.
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