Woman brilliantly cuts off man who kept interrupting her presentation: 'I’m not done speaking'

Editor's note: This article was originally published on December 16, 2021. It has since been updated.
 
A 20-year-old woman has inspired millions on social media after sharing how she stood up to a man who kept interrupting her during a meeting. The TikTok user named Sabrina Lassegue, who goes by the username @directedbybrini on the app, managed to capture the interaction in a short video that has been viewed over 12 million times since it was uploaded less than a week ago. In the video, Lassegue is heard shutting down the man's repeated interruptions by calling him out on his rude and extremely unprofessional behavior. In a text overlay providing some context for the video, she revealed that the man had also mansplained her own ideas back to her. Yes, the very same ideas she had just presented.

"Was in a meeting and this man kept speaking over me while I was presenting. Then started presenting my ideas as his own. And he said 'the problem with you women is.' So, I cut him off right back," the text overlay states. "I have no tolerance for this anymore." Lassegue—who is the owner of the multimedia production company, Yellow Rain Productions—decided to film the interaction right after he made the sexist statement, right in time for her epic takedown of the mansplainer.

"No. no. Please keep yourself on mute. No, I'm actually not done speaking. So while I respect your ability to talk on and on, my ears actually do have a limit," the young woman is heard telling the man. "I find it extremely disrespectful and degrading that you felt a need to not only interrupt my entire presentation but also repeat back to me exactly what I had just offered to the table." As her video took off on TikTok and accumulated over 13k comments from impressed netizens, Lassegue gave some more context in a comment.

"Guys this is me presenting a commercial to a brand. I own a production company & got brought in to direct it. He is on their marketing team," the comment reads. In response to "story time" requests, she explained in a follow-up video that the unsavory experience is just a reality of being a woman in the workforce; especially a young one. "So there's absolutely no major story to this video other than what I said in the comments. So I own a production company. I'm 20 years old and basically, when I started my company, I was about 18 years old," she says in the video.

"I knew as a young woman, I wasn't gonna be necessarily taken seriously, so I practice all the time. And I'm lucky to have wonderful mentors in the industry who have helped me find ways to respectfully get my point across and turn the table back around to me in a meeting," she revealed. "This brand brought me in to direct and produce a commercial. We already signed contracts, everything... I was presenting to them my idea. This guy was on the marketing team and he basically started interrupting me over and over again." In another comment, Lassegue revealed that those higher up in the company have apologized to her for the man's disrespectful actions during the meeting.

"They actually removed him from this particular project as of this morning," she shared in yet another comment. "They are also fine with the video because I didn't post them or the man." Many TikTok users praised Lassegue for standing up for herself in such an inspiring manner. "The way that you’re only 20 years old and were able to shut him like that is absolutely incredible. You’re destined for greatness," wrote Vincent while Payy wrote: "The fact I’m more interested how you gain that level of confidence at such a young age. Wow. You go girl."