TV Host Reveals She Had to ‘Fight’ to Wear Swimsuit Top During Beach Sketch

In a strange look at how the entertainment business works, a TV host recently revealed an argument with a producer over wearing a swimsuit top in a beach segment. We were catching up on Ovilee May’s podcast Casters Couch, and a random story about her time as a presenter on G4TV jumped out as an example of some of the strange double standards in the TV business. As May recalled in a March episode of the pod, she had to “fight tooth and nail” to wear a simple bikini top during a comedy sketch.

Along with Casters Couch co-hosts Clayton “CaptainFlowers” Raines and Barento “Raz” Mohammed, May and special guest Goldenboy were discussing their time on Boosted, the comedic esports variety/talk show from the rebooted G4. The pair vented about how they couldn’t ever show Esports highlights due to confusing rules from the network’s legal team. Instead, they had to lean on comedic sketches and generic overview segments.

For one of these sketches, May pitched a short bit where she’d stand on a green-screen beach to introduce the bikini-clad water gun shooter Senran Kagura: Peach Beach Splash. While the game itself is a bit risque, May’s pitch was simply beach-themed to make the episode a little more engaging. Plus, it would serve as a fun juxtaposition to the more serious games Boosted covered, such as Halo Infinite. However, an unnamed male producer tried to block the sketch, complaining that May would be sexualizing herself.

“Basically, for this sketch that we were gonna have before this episode played, I had to literally fight tooth and nail to do the skit in a swimsuit,” May recalled. “You guys know me; I don’t got t—es, I don’t got cleavage, so it wasn’t like I was bounding out there with giant double-D’s where it’s like ‘Look at me, world!’ No, I’m pretty f—ing flat-chested, so it’s just a bikini top.”

She added, “I was like ‘Let me be in a bikini top, and then just the water gun, and that’s it because we’re supposed to be at the beach. The background is the beach. The joke is the f—ing beach.’ I had to tell this man, this f—ing man …  he’s like ‘No, I don’t want you to sexualize yourself,’ and I’m like ‘I’m not sexualizing myself. We’re at a f—ing beach. This is a costume.”

Goldenboy then brought up the kicker to the whole situation: Fellow G4TV show Name Your Price prominently feature streamer Amouranth in a bikini without issue soon after. There seemed to be inconsistent practices at the network due to executive-level disorder. The hosts vented that some higher-ups just didn’t “get it” when it came to comedy and gaming content, which made creating programming there a challenge.

As for the Senran Kagura: Peach Beach Splash segment, it did make it into the final edit of the Feb. 24, 2022, Boosted episode. The full episode is still available on YouTube. The show itself would soon be canceled, a casualty of G4 executives mismanaging the network’s Esports vertical. May would leave the network soon after, and Comcast shuttered the whole operation before the end of 2022.

May is now working with Esports company FlyQuest, in addition to helming Casters Couch. The podcast is free to watch on YouTube, but Patreon backers get exclusive bonus content.