A teenage influencer whose friend was attacked by a group of men after they recognised her has described their behaviour as “absolutely not okay”. 

On Friday night, 19 year old Rebecca Rose was out with her friends in Dublin. 

At around 1.30 in the morning, they were leaving a nightclub and Ms Rose had agreed to meet a friend at McDonald’s. 

 “As I leave the club, there is a group of men who start harassing me and are basically threatening me,” she told Lunchtime Live. 

“I didn't know exactly what they were saying, but the guy who was helping me told me the next day they were threatening to beat me up if he wasn't with me - it's insane to think about.”

Ms Rose explained that the men recognised her off her social media content and thought that gave them a licence to threaten her. 

“That's how they knew who I was and they all just decided to threaten a girl, which I think, as a group of men, is disgusting - but clearly not to them,” she said. 

Ms Rose and her friend then decided to leave for McDonald, where she hoped to meet her friend. 

However, the group of men followed them and started to slap her friend. 

“Security comes in and gets rid of the two guys that were beating him up,” she continued. 

Her friend has since told Ms Rose he is “completely fine”, but at the time she was very worried for him. 

“I was messaging him the next day, he's all okay,” she said. 

“I just feel so guilty that he was put in a bad situation, basically, because I was there. 

“And I just think it's an insane thing to happen, especially Grafton Street, Dublin - like it's not a dangerous place.”

Ms Rose only started posting on social media last year, but feels increasingly unsafe since people began to recognise her on the street. 

“I knew people like screaming at me, like screaming my name - and that's fine,” she said. 

“But when people grab me or they just won't leave me alone - that's absolutely not okay.”

Ms Rose added that usually she “brushes it off” but now feels things have to change. 

“I don't know why people think it's okay to treat me like I'm not a person,” she said. 

“I think people forget I am a person like they'll see me in real life, like, ‘Oh, let's take a photo of her, let's grab her.’

“Like, why are groups of men grabbing a girl?”

Main image: Gardaí in the city centre. Picture by: Leah Farrell/RollingNews.ie.