Just get through this moment and then kind of shake it off
On a sweltering Tuesday night in Sherman Oaks, a KTLA reporter named Rachel Menitoff made a quiet, private decision — to endure rather than react — while a cockroach crawled across her body during a live heat wave broadcast. She finished the segment. The world noticed. What began as a single moment of professional discipline became something the public could not stop turning over in its hands: a mirror held up to individual character, urban anxiety, and the strange theater of live television.
- A cockroach landed on Menitoff mid-broadcast and crawled across her neck and chest as she delivered her report without missing a word.
- The tension was invisible to viewers in real time — only after the camera cut did she allow herself to react, revealing the silent endurance behind the composed performance.
- Colleagues replayed the footage the next morning, transforming a potential on-air disaster into a celebrated demonstration of grace under absurd pressure.
- Social media fractured the moment in two directions: journalists praised her nerve while political commentators seized on the cockroach as a symbol of Los Angeles's declining urban conditions.
- The clip has settled into the cultural feed as something unresolved — equal parts admiration for one reporter and argument about what a city has become.
Rachel Menitoff was reporting live from Sherman Oaks on a Tuesday night, covering the heat wave pressing down on the San Fernando Valley, when a cockroach landed on her stomach and began moving upward. She felt it. She kept talking.
Her words stayed level — overnight temperatures, recovery time, the Valley still in the 80s — while the insect crawled to her neck, jumped to her microphone, and eventually flew off. Only after the segment ended did she brush herself off and exhale. "Oh gosh. Oh, I feel something," she said, the moment caught on video by her colleagues.
The next morning, KTLA replayed the footage on air. Anchor Megan Henderson marveled that she could never have held it together. Reporter Eric Spillman offered his admiration. Meteorologist Kirk Hawkins admitted it gave him nightmares. Menitoff, for her part, explained her reasoning plainly: she knew the cockroach was there, made a calculation, and decided that stopping meant not finishing. So she endured it.
There was a quiet irony she acknowledged herself — she had been reporting on extreme heat, and cockroaches are drawn to warmth and bright camera lights. She had become, in some sense, a trap for the very conditions she was describing.
The video spread fast, and the responses divided along familiar lines. Journalists praised her composure. Political commentators used the cockroach as a referendum on Los Angeles — its mayor, its cleanliness, its contradictions. A neighborhood with a median home price of $1.5 million was being compared, unfavorably, to cities far poorer. Menitoff had kept her cool. Everyone else was still deciding what her cool was supposed to mean.
Rachel Menitoff was standing in Sherman Oaks on a Tuesday night, reporting on the heat wave that had settled over Los Angeles, when a cockroach landed on her stomach. She felt it immediately—the small, hard body moving across her skin, crawling up toward her neck and chest as she spoke into the microphone. Most people would have stopped. Most people would have screamed. Menitoff kept talking.
"And it's a lot more comfortable at this hour, but we're still in the 80s here in the Valley," she said, her voice steady, her delivery professional. "So overnight temperatures aren't necessarily dropping, and this leads to less recovery time from the daytime heat." The insect jumped onto her microphone. It flew away. She finished the segment.
It was only after the camera stopped rolling that Menitoff allowed herself to react. "Oh gosh. Oh, I feel something," she said, brushing the bug away. Her colleagues at KTLA 5 caught the moment on video the next morning and played it back during their broadcast, turning what could have been a moment of panic into something else entirely: a demonstration of professional composure under the most absurd kind of pressure.
Anchor Megan Henderson watched the clip and shook her head. "That's our Rachel Menitoff, who is so professional," she said. "She kept her cool. There's no way I would have been able to keep going." Reporter Eric Spillman agreed. "I have to hand it to her. She was really calm." Meteorologist Kirk Hawkins took a different angle: "That's terrifying. Now we're all going to have nightmares about flying cockroaches."
When KTLA asked Menitoff about the incident, she explained her thinking in the moment. She had known the cockroach was there, crawling across her body, but she made a calculation: if she reacted, if she stopped, she would not finish the report. So she decided to endure it. "I said to myself, just get through this moment and then kind of shake it off," she said. There was an irony she did not miss. The story she was reporting on was about extreme heat in the Valley—and cockroaches, she noted, are drawn to heat, to warm temperatures, to the bright lights of a camera. She had become, in a sense, the perfect trap for the very thing she was describing.
The video spread across social media, and the reactions split along predictable lines. Journalists and commentators praised her nerve. "Had this happened to me, I would have freaked out," one anchor wrote. Another called her a professional. But others saw in the moment something darker: evidence of Los Angeles's decay. "Karen Bass's LA is overrun by cockroaches," one conservative commentator wrote, invoking the city's mayor. A former mayoral candidate compared the neighborhood to a Mumbai slum and noted the median home price was $1.5 million. The cockroach, in other words, became a symbol—not just of a reporter's composure, but of a city's problems, real or imagined, depending on who was looking.
Menitoff's moment of professional grace had become something larger than itself: a viral clip, a referendum on urban conditions, a test of how we respond when the world intrudes on the carefully controlled space of live television. She had kept her composure. Everyone else was still arguing about what her composure meant.
Notable Quotes
I said to myself, just get through this moment and then kind of shake it off— Rachel Menitoff, KTLA reporter
She kept her cool. There's no way I would have been able to keep going.— Megan Henderson, KTLA anchor
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
What was going through her mind in those seconds when she felt it crawling?
She said afterward that she knew it was there, but she made a choice. Finish the segment first, react later. It's the calculation a professional makes when the camera is on.
Did she know it was a cockroach in the moment, or just that something was on her?
She knew. She felt it moving. But knowing and acting on that knowledge are two different things when you're live on air.
Why did her colleagues find it so remarkable?
Because most people don't have that kind of control. Most people would have jumped, screamed, broken character. She just kept talking about temperature recovery times while an insect crawled on her neck.
The social media reaction seems to have split into two camps—admiration and criticism of LA itself.
Right. The cockroach became a symbol. For some, it was proof of her professionalism. For others, it was proof that the city is failing. The insect was real, but what people saw in it depended on what they already believed.
Did she ever explain why cockroaches would be attracted to her specifically?
She connected it to the heat wave she was reporting on. Cockroaches seek warmth, and the camera lights made her position even more attractive to them. She was literally standing in the conditions that draw them in.
So in a way, she was the perfect storm for the story.
Exactly. The story was about heat. The heat brought the cockroach. And she had to report on it while living it.