Leigh Sales: “That kind of behaviour is intolerable”

7:30 host Leigh Sales has spoken out following an incident at a charity event she was hosting on Saturday night at the Hilton Hotel, when a man kissed her on the lips.

The Guardian reports she was introduced by a director of the multiple sclerosis charity, retired businessman Phil Newman, who offered his cheek for Sales to peck but who then turned his head suddenly and planted an uninvited kiss on her lips.

Sales was so taken aback she screamed and then approached the microphone and said “hashtag me too”, before composing herself and continuing.

“The only reason I am commenting publicly is that given how many people witnessed the incident, I feel it would be gutless not to stand up and say that kind of behaviour is intolerable and the time for women being subject to it or having to tolerate it is long gone,” she said.

Newman subsequently approached Sales’s table and offered his cheek to her again, at which she angrily told him off.

He said he apologised on the night, describing it as “an attempt at humour and light entertainment to start the night off.

Sales confirmed, “I had strong words to the man involved, he apologised and I accepted that apology. That should be the end of it as far as I’m concerned.”

In July a Western Australian man threw a tub of yoghurt at the ABC host during a speech for the Disrupted Festival 2019.