Chilean reporter loses bikini after live cross strip tease

A young TV "journalist" who has form for light-hearted antics has extended her 15 minutes of international fame after suffering a wardrobe malfunction during a live cross.

Chilean reporter Bernardita Middleton probably wasn't thinking about gonzo journalist Hunter S Thompson’s description of journalism as "not a profession or a trade” but a cheap catch-all for misfits, while she performed a striptease on a Renaca beach, in the Valparaiso region.

After disrobing to reveal her bikini she plunged into the weedy waters of the Pacific, only to lose her flimsy bikini top.

"In truth I wasn’t going to go in the water, the bandeau bikini was a recent present, but I didn’t attach the straps to keep it in place because I had them on my top," she told the studio after the "malfunction".

"In Renaca the waves are very mischievous and it always happens. You just have to turn around pull up your bikini top and get on with it.”

Middleton made headlines in 2014 when she "proposed" to Prince Harry during a royal visit to Santiago.