For many people, there's a learning curve when it comes to keeping things appropriate when working from home, and the past couple of months have proven that time and again for newscasters from the local front to the national scale. It's not just a U.S. trend, either, with a Spanish TV anchor getting caught with a half-naked woman passing through the background of a recent broadcast, which has caused a strife with his girlfriend. Or his ex-girlfriend, depending on who you ask.
Host Alfonso Merlos, of the Spanish channel Estado de Alarma, was on a report and in the midst of a conversation when another journalist, Alexia Rivas, walked by in the background. Had she been in a business suit, it'd be one thing, but Rivas appeared to be wearing a bra and nothing else. And it might not have been anything but a TV snafu if Merlos was single, but he'd been in a relationship with Spain's Big Brother vet Marta López, at least according to López.
Before moving on, everyone might as well check out the video below.
Marta López appeared on Viva La Vida and claimed that she and Alfonso Merlos had been spending much of the quarantine sheltered together, but in the days before the TV gaffe, they had an argument over a family matter. The matter involved an ex, with whom she shares a son, and after the disagreement, they were apart, but that they'd reconciled by the Thursday, which was the day after Alexia Rivas was seen in Merlos' report. What's more, Merlos apparently talked about wanting to marry López during their reconciliation.
This all kind of sounds like Ross and Rachel's situation on Friends, doesn't it? Only instead of showing up in her skivvies on live TV, it's being caught behind a front door. Not quite the same thing on that level, but still. Were they on a break?
Soon after the on-air incident, Alfonso Merlos came clean and seemingly apologetic about it on The Ana Rose Show, saying that he was already broken up with Marta López whenever Alexia Rivas was seen at his home. And Rivas backed him up in an interview with Socialité, where she also clarified that she was wearing a flesh-colored bikini bottom and was on her way out to tan.
Alexia Rivas claimed that she'd known Alfonso Merlos for years, and that when they'd gotten together some months previously, he was a single man. As well, she said they weren't exactly hiding their relationship, and López indicated that she found evidence of their relationship in text messages.
It's clearly a messy situation on several levels, but let it stand as a lesson to all: When you're on a video call while working from home, make sure to tell everyone else, naked or not, to please stay in a different room until told otherwise. It just might save you a lot of ridicule and harassment, among other things. Also, maybe don't dress like a bottle of hand sanitizer like Katy Perry did.
