Rachel Menitoff Keeps Reporting As An Uninvited Guest Crawls In
KTLA 5 field reporter Rachel Menitoff deserves hazard pay, a medal and perhaps the rest of the week off after keeping her composure while a flying cockroach crawled across her during a live report from Sherman Oaks.
Menitoff was reporting on Southern California’s extreme heat on Tuesday, July 14, when the oversized insect appeared near the lower part of her outfit and began making its way upward. It crossed her shirt, reached the exposed skin near her chest and neck, then wandered onto the KTLA microphone before finally flying away.
And Rachel? She kept delivering the report as though nothing had happened. No screaming. No microphone launch. Not even the emergency dance most of us would have performed while abandoning every remaining sentence on the teleprompter.
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The truly wild part is that Menitoff knew the cockroach was on her. She later explained that acknowledging it would have made finishing the segment nearly impossible, so she concentrated on getting through the report and dealing with the surprise passenger afterward.
Once the camera moved away, she immediately brushed herself off and made certain the insect was gone. Back in the studio, her colleagues replayed the moment with the same mixture of admiration and horror shared by nearly everyone watching: how did she not flinch?
The timing was almost too perfect. Menitoff had been explaining the dangers of the Valley’s intense heat, and she later noted that warm temperatures and the heat produced by television lights can create an inviting environment for cockroaches. The bug apparently heard “extreme heat alert” and decided it had found its live television debut.
Menitoff also handled the viral aftermath with humor, joking on social media that the insect had attempted to steal her thunder. It failed. The cockroach may have earned the replay, but the story belongs to the reporter who refused to let it hijack her live shot.
Watch Rachel Menitoff Power Through The Cockroach Invasion
The KTLA clip shows the insect crawling across Menitoff’s clothing, neck and microphone while she calmly completes her extreme-heat report.
Source: KTLA 5.
