Carlota Prado shakes her head slowly in disbelief, her hands clasped tightly to her tear-stained face but leaving space for her haunted eyes to continue watching.
The young contestant has been called to the diary room of Spain’s Big Brother studio house by “The Voice”, known in the Spanish version of the reality show as the “Super”.
She can have had no idea she was to be shown images in which she is subjected to an alleged sexual abuse that is now the subject of a criminal investigation.
“Please, Super, stop now, please,” Ms Prado begs, as the diary room screen replays what happened the night before in her bed.
The scene was recorded two years ago by Zeppelin, the production company that makes Big Brother in Spain, but it never went out on the show Gran Hermano Revolution.
In another clip of the video, obtained by digital newspaper El Confidencial, Ms Prado retches twice before sobbing heavily. She asks for some medication to help her to relax: “My heart is beating like crazy.”
It was Saturday 4 November 2017. The night before, the Big Brother contestants had enjoyed a party with plentiful alcohol on offer.
A clearly inebriated Ms Prado was helped to bed by José María López, with whom she had been having a relationship.
When Mr López moved to initiate intimate contact, she replied “No, I can’t” and then collapsed in her bed. Mr López is accused of penetrating her as she slept in an alleged assault that lasted five minutes.
He has denied sexually abusing Ms Prado. In Spain, sexual abuse is applied in cases where a man has non-consensual sex with a woman but does not use violence or intimidation.
The next day, the couple had breakfast together and Mr López told Ms Prado he had “taken care of her” after she overdid the booze.
Then, after midday, events took a turn and word came through that Mr López had been expelled from the house for “intolerable behaviour”.
Still none the wiser, Ms Prado was called to the diary room to witness the alleged sexual assault.
This was no longer the laid-back fun of reality TV. The situation uncomfortably resembles a plotline from the dystopic series Black Mirror.al.
Carlota: “Are people going to see this?” The Voice promises the images will not be shown or shared in any way. “Where is he?”
Voice: José María has been expelled definitively, Carlota.
Carlota: So, I cannot even have a conversation with him, right?
Voice: No. Carlota, we want you to know that the organisation doesn’t condone this kind of behaviour.
Carlota: Nor do I condone it – how could I? What feels unfair is that I can’t talk to him because he didn’t say anything to me. Well, you know that he didn’t tell me; you know it all too well.
Voice: We want you to know that you have our complete support, psychological and in terms of family.
Carlota: I don’t want to talk to a psychologist; I want to talk to my friends out there [in the Big Brother house]. And I need you assure me that this will not be broadcast because obviously I’m going to talk about all of this.
The Voice refuses her request to see her housemates.
Voice: Carlota, for you and José María, this matter shouldn’t leave this room.
Carlota pleads to be let out of the diary room, but the door only opens when an executive producer and a psychologist enter to take Carlota off the set and to a nearby hotel.
So, in a house full of cameras and where the contestants are under constant observation, why did no one appear to see the alleged abuse take place at the time?
Or, if they did, why was no action taken? And why was the decision taken to confront the unsuspecting victim, alone in the diary room, with images from the alleged assault?
Sources from Zeppelin have admitted to the BBC that mistakes were made, indicating that although there were suspicions about Mr López’s behaviour, there was also doubt over what was happening because they were a couple.
After several minutes, the sources explained, a safe word was spoken over the speaker so that Mr López stopped what he was doing.
The night team’s report on what happened was considered by executive producers the next morning, when the decision was taken to expel Mr López.
Zeppelin producers stress that Ms Prado was given psychological support and taken to a hotel so she could process what she had been shown in a protected environment.
