Basima al-Shammar a news anchor for Kuwait TV, was covering Kuwait’s municipal election last weekend, when she made the mistake of jokingly complementing a male correspondent live on air.

In a video that has since gone viral, Al-Shammar can be heard telling her male colleague, who didn’t know he was already on live TV and was still adjusting his traditional headgear, that he didn’t need to fix his looks because he was already handsome.

Compliment

In the Western world, this would have passed as a simple compliment, but in Kuwait, it was perceived as flirtation on the female anchor’s side.

“Nawaf, you don’t need to adjust your ghutra, you’re handsome as is,” was the phrase that will probably end up costing Basima al-Shammar her job.

Innocent

It’s an innocent sounding phrase, but it’s been doing the rounds on Arab social media and upsetting a lot of Kuwaiti politicians.

Some of them, like MP Mohammad Al Hayef, contacted the Ministry of Information, which runs Kuwait TV, to take action against the presenter, adding that such a slip of the tongue should not be tolerated.