A woman has been praised by thousands of TikTok users after a video of her confronting a man 'harassing' her at the gym went viral.Chelsie Gleason (@justchesslee) was recording her workout routine when a man approached her, who can be faintly heard trying to talk to her as she lifts weights.The man walked away after being ignored by Gleason, who had her earphones in, before turning back and leaning in close to say something while pointing at her.It was Gleason's reaction that sparked the outpouring of praise on social media. As the man leaned in, she quickly moved away before shouting "Don't come near me", which was enough to make him leave.The video has been viewed more than 31 million times on TikTok and has accumulated 5.4 million likes and 47,000 comments.Gleason's handling of the situation has inspired many other women, who have left comments of praise and support on the clip. "That is true strength," one user wrote, while another urged women in similar situations to "always be loud and call attention."Even Gymshark has responded – stressing the importance of gyms being a "safe space for everyone" and telling Gleason the company is 'proud of her for sticking up for herself'.
Since the video went viral, Gleason has uploaded two follow up posts on her TikTok, revealing the man had been identified and banned from the gym.
"When I first had an interaction with this guy, he seemed like just a random nice guy that would come up and talk to people in the gym," she explained.
"After weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks of this happening, it started getting a little weird. Like, why is he approaching me, I've already told him, you know, leave me alone. I don't really need your help. I don't really want your advice. I'm not asking you for anything. Just kind of leave me alone.
"So me and my friends started noticing his weird behaviour, he would go up to random people and talk about weird conspiracy stuff – black vans following him, people's personalities being changed.
"[He says] his girlfriend is Taylor Swift the supermodel, she's having his baby and I'm really missing out by not being with him."
Gleason said upon watching the video back, it sounds like the man was trying to talk to her about his girlfriend's personality being changed.
When he leaned in before walking away, Gleason said he had called her a "f***ing traitor", but it was not a comment he hadn't used before.
The run-ins with the man had become a regular occurrence for Gleason but with the confrontations being "verbal" and "nothing threatening really", nothing was done about his removal from the gym.
Gleason explained she had resorted to getting her male friends at the gym to walk her to her car after a session to ensure she was safe.
"After this video blew up, we got his name, we got ahold of him. He's banned. He can't come back," she said in a second follow up video.
"When I got to the gym last night, they informed me that he tried to come back and the police were called and he was arrested. And they found he already had a warrant out for stalking another girl.
"He's in jail now. He's kicked out. He's banned, everybody's safe. The staff at my gym is really really awesome and they did a really good job at taking care of me and they always want to make sure that everybody there is comfortable and safe."