Meteorologist Liberté Chan Was Forced to Cover Up On Air After Her Dress Offended Viewers

For the Los Angeles-based KTLA 5 news team, Saturday morning's weather forecast was cloudy with a chance of misogyny.

Meteorologist Liberté Chan was in the middle of her forecast for the 8 a.m. hour when a hand appeared to the right of the screen holding a cardigan, beckoning for her to put it on.

A baffled Chan can be heard asking, "What's going on? You want me to put this on? Why, because it's cold?" No, Chan wasn't being asked to cover up because cold weather was in the forecast; according to the man handing her the cardigan, it was because "We're getting a lot of emails."

Viewers who saw the incident go down live Tweeted their shock and disapproval, but praised Chan for seeming to take the ordeal in stride. 

Twitter user @Heather_Poole expressed doubt that a male newscaster would ever be treated the same way — nailing the real reason the decision to force the outfit change matters for female news anchors.

"In the history of news, has a man been asked to change clothes — ON AIR — because viewers were unhappy with what he was wearing?" she asked.

In a live video posted to her Facebook page, Chan filmed a coworker reading off some of the "angry emails" the studio had received in response to her choice of attire.

Following two emails read aloud that both claim that she looked like she had shown up to work in the same cocktail dress she had worn to a party the night before, Chan asks "Can we talk about my weather performance?"

"I'm sorry if I was inappropriate," she says, explaining that another more "demure" dress hadn't worked out, forcing her to wear her backup option.

User @OHTheMaryD said that KTLA was in the wrong for the way they handled the situation, not Chan, and said that the station owed her "an on-air apology, because this was deplorable."

But Chan made light of the incident on Twitter, responding to a fan who told her she'd rocked the outfit with a "Thank you!" accompanied by a dress emoji.

Read more: This Woman Was Sent Home From Work for Not Wearing High Heels at the Office