Global Calgary’s Leslie Horton shuts down email body-shamer on live TV

globalnews.ca:

Leslie Horton had no problem responding to a body-shaming viewer this week, gaining a huge amount of public support for the measured and calm way she approached his rude comments about her looks.

Horton, an anchor and traffic reporter for Global News Calgary, was in the middle of the show’s broadcast last Thursday when an email appeared in the station inbox from a male viewer.

Horton quickly switched from reporting the day’s traffic conditions to addressing the correspondence.

“I’m just going to respond to an email that I just got saying, ‘Congratulations on your pregnancy; if you’re going to wear old bus driver pants, you have to expect emails like this,'” Horton said.

What came next, however, was a masterclass in burying a troll.

“No, I’m not pregnant. I actually lost my uterus to cancer last year, and this is what women of my age look like. So, if it’s offensive to you, that is unfortunate. Think about the emails you send,” she continued, referencing her 2021 endometrial cancer diagnosis.

Horton says this isn’t the first time she’s heard from this particular mean-spirited viewer — she told Global National‘s Dawna Friesen he’s been emailing her “for probably about four years now,” but up until this particular broadcast her plan was just to “ignore, ignore, ignore” his remarks.

“I had no plans to address the nasty email online, I put it aside and prepared for my next traffic report as usual, but as I started my traffic hit those words just came out of my mouth … didn’t plan them, rehearse them, know I was going to say them … they just came from my heart,” she said.

“I think what it might have been is I had a pretty public cancer battle last year and I lost my uterus. And lots of viewers knew about that. So to say to a