‘Not okay on any level’: Erin Molan discusses ‘humiliating’ pub groping incident at the weekend

After ‘grabbing, not just touching ... almost clawing’ her bum, the bloke kicked out of a pub for groping Erin Molan apologised to her boyfriend, not to her.

Erin Molan has recounted the “embarrassing” incident that led to a Sydney man being temporarily banned from a Mosman pub on Saturday.

The 2Day FM radio host shared that her partner Todd Selby got into “a confrontation” at the Buena with the man who grabbed her behind, who was known to him, and noted that the man later apologised to her boyfriend, not to her.

“I was at a pub on Saturday, not a raging one or anything, just a lovely place in Mosman and then we stayed to watch the Grand Final which was on in the afternoon,” Molan told her radio co-hosts Hughesy and Ed.

“I was there with my partner, and he knew the guy actually and they were having a chat.”

“He’d definitely had a few drinks, and a couple of times Todd had gotten up, to either go to the toilet or go to the bar, and he’d come in a little bit close and I felt a little bit uncomfortable.”

Erin Molan on stage during a panel discussion at It's A Bloke Thing 2023. Picture: Kevin Farmer

Molan, 40, walked over to the sports bar to see what time the NRL Grand Final was starting on Sunday.

“He came up behind me and was standing very close and talking and then yeah, just grabbed me on the bottom,” she said.

Erin Molan and partner Todd Selby. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

“[He was] grabbing, not just touching, but almost clawing back there in a very private place.

“I felt like I was in shock at the time and not really understanding what had happened.

“I didn’t even react then, which I think back, should I have reacted or said something?

‘A LOT OF WOMEN CAN RELATE’

“I think a lot of women can relate. You sometimes don’t know what to do.”

Speaking candidly about the encounter, Molan emphasised that unconsensual touching in bars is something most women have experienced at some point in their lives.

“I was shocked, and not because it had happened, because it’s happened to me before. It’s actually quite normal,” Molan said.

Molan returned to her table, and when Selby asked her what was wrong, she said “nothing”.

“My immediate thought was: ‘I don’t want to cause trouble, I don’t want to make a scene, I don’t want him to get in trouble’,” she said.

Prompted further by Selby to explain the shift in her mood, she told him.

“Someone went to grab the guy and said something to him, what I’d just conveyed to Todd,” she said.

Ed Kavalee, Dave Hughes and Erin Molan: 2Day FM’s breakfast team.

“What’s interesting is when he came back over, he didn’t even look at me. He didn’t even try and deny it. He was looking over at my partner and kept saying ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry’.

“My partner got pretty angry.”

Hughesy asked whether there had been a “scuffle” between the men.

“Uh, yeah, a confrontation I guess. I kind of got in the middle and grabbed Todd and said it’s not worth it, let’s go. And then they kicked him out.”

Speaking to The Daily Telegraph on Sunday, general manager of the Beuna Mitch Wood said his staff were “very concerned” about the “unusual incident” and barred the man from the venue for six months in accordance with their “stringent sexual harassment policies”.

“I kept thinking, what had I done?” Molan said.

“This is the issue we have with so much of this stuff … It’s not okay on any level.”

“I was thinking ‘we’d been to the beach and I’m wearing swimmers and crochet dress’. What did I do for him to think it was okay? It’s awful, but it still happens.”

“I’m completely fine, but it just makes me angry.”

Molan added that she was contacted by police, but is not taking the matter any further.

“I was happy with the outcome at the pub that they banned him and I’d rather leave it there.”