A TikToker says in a viral video that a hotel worker sexually assaulted her while she was on a family vacation at the Royalton Riviera Cancun resort in Mexico.
In the first TikTok, posted on Thursday, Aaliyah Topp (@aaliyah.topp) speaks to a man speaking faintly in the background. “I’m really tired I want to go to bed,” Topp says. “My mom is here. I don’t want to have sex. I don’t want money, I don’t want to have sex.” Then her phone drops, and the clip ends.
The text overlay reads, “Do not stay at the royalton in Cancun Mexico, I was sexually assaulted by a worker. I tried to close my room door when he grabbed my coochie, kicked my phone and ran.”
In the caption, Topp wrote, “TikTok please blow this up and help protect women from this place.”
By Monday, the TikTok had over 4 million views.
In the comments, Topp wrote that the man said “sex about 6 times and I said no everytime then when he wouldn’t go away I started recording.”
In a later TikTok posted on Saturday, Topp said that the man is in “jail for 72 hours and then will be released and given a court date and then it’s all up to the judge unless I stay here for the extra week or two to make sure he gets charged and arrested.
“But the police have the video and a written statement from me so the judge will take one look at that and probably arrest him,” she continued. “He will definitely never work in Mexico again.”
On the same day, Topp posted another TikTok and said that the hotel is threatening to sue her for posting a TikTok. She said she signed a nondisclosure agreement that wasn’t in English.
In the clip, she also said that the hotel and police misidentified the suspect and put the wrong person in jail.
“I said in my words exactly, ‘I don’t know if it’s him but I think it is,’” Topp said. “The police were the ones who measured the picture and said they think it was him before I did. The man who is in jail isn’t the guy who touched me so he’s still out there.
“No matter what I’m not going to stay in Mexico longer,” she added.
On Sunday, Topp posted another TikTok with a detailed explanation of the incident. She said she went outside to smoke a cigarette and when she was halfway through, an employee came up to her and she offered him one. When she finished her cigarette, she went back to her room. “As I’m turning to close the door, he’s just there like he was watching me finish my cigarette, like he was waiting for me to go back to my room,” she said in the clip. “He then says sex.”
She said that she thought he said “cigarette” and offered him one but that he continued to say “sex.”
Topp said she replied, “No, I don’t want to have sex with you.” When he kept asking for sex, she pulled out her phone to record him. “So no, I did not open the door for anybody,” Topp said. “I do not know him. I have not seen that man in my life, not even around the resort.
“I was not comfortable, my hand was shaking and I had a nervous smile and my eyes were watching his every move,” she continued. “He touched me and then my phone fell, he kicked my phone and ran away.” She said he touched her vagina.
“If I hit him or did anything before that, I would’ve gotten charged with assault and I did not want to run after him and possibly cause myself to be in danger,” she said. “I closed the door and ran to my mom’s room.”
Topp said she then woke her mom up who called the hotel, and the manager and security arrived shortly after. Topp said that when she and her mom told the manager what happened, “the manager’s jaw dropped. The manager was so nice though.”
She said the manager accompanied her and her mom to the police station to report the assault.
On Sunday, Topp posted a TikTok calling out people who were “victim-blaming” her or claiming the video was staged. “I’m scared to be in a taxi alone let alone do something like that,” she said in the clip. “You guys are victim-blaming and it’s fucking disgusting. I should never have to explain myself to anybody, I shouldn’t be making this video. Anyone who comments like that, you guys are the reason women are fucking scared.”
Due to the complicated nature of reporting sexual assault incidents, it’s difficult to find exact statistics on women being assaulted during travel.
The Daily Dot reached out to Topp via TikTok comment and Instagram direct message. The Daily Dot also reached out to the Royalton Riviera Cancun via email.
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