A live news broadcast descended into chaos when a man wearing a hockey mask began scuffling with the show's presenter.

WABC-TV reporter CeFaan Kim was covering a story about an attempted rape on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York, on Friday evening (3 March) when a stranger unexpectedly jumped into shot.

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His face covered with a white hockey mask, the man slung his arm around Kim's neck and demanded the crew keep the camera on him, saying: "Put the camera on me ... What's up. What's up."

The bizarre encounter then saw the suspect – believed to be a local rapper named Majesty Da Rebel – struggle with Kim, before taking his mask off and pushing the reporter to the ground.

The man can be heard saying to Kim: "I didn't attack you, you attacked me."

Kim, who is reportedly a sergeant in the US Army Reserves, posted a video of the scuffle on Facebook the next day. He wrote: "Guy totally snuck up on me. He wouldn't get off me so I shoved him off and then he pushed me to the ground.

"Thank you to my crew and the random stranger who kept us separated and calmed me down in the heat of the moment... because I'm not gonna lie... when someone puts their hands on you, it's hard not to get amped up." Kim said he wasn't badly injured in the incident, instead suffering "just a scrape and a bruise".

He filed a police report and appealed for anyone who recognised the suspect to get in touch with police. "This is the man who attacked me last night during a live broadcast," Kim wrote. " If anyone has seen him around please give the 7th precinct a call."

A rapper by the name of Majesty Da Rebel (real name Key Jonta Foster) appeared to confess to being the man in the footage, posting a screenshot of the broadcast on his Instagram account and writing: "When you see an opportunity you take it without fear." He told the New York Post he gatecrashed Kim's news report simply to get publicity for his music.

"The reason I did it was because I knew I'd get negative feedback from it," Foster said. "I can always flip that. I saw an opportunity and took the opportunity to promote my video and mixed tape. From the beginning, it was friendly – I put my arm around him, and then he pushed me, grabbed me."

He added: "I'm not scared to deal with the consequences. They'll probably interrogate me, ask me what happened. White guys bomb video reporters all the time. A black man tries to get air time and then gets beat up by the reporter. I'm gonna do what I gotta do and seize an opportunity."

New York