‘I heard this sound and it was my dress that got cracked between Rolf’s fingers’: Vanessa Feltz relives the moment she was groped by a disgraced star during the live Big Breakfast interview while his wife Alwen was in the same room
- The broadcaster said a convicted sex offender assaulted her during an interview in 1996
Vanessa Feltz has revealed that she was groped by Rolf Harris on live TV while his wife was standing a few feet away.
The 61-year-old announcer said the convicted sex offender assaulted her during a 1996 interview on Channel 4’s The Big Breakfast.
She described how Harris — whose death from neck cancer at age 93 was announced yesterday — pulled up her dress and tried to touch her underpants during a segment called “On The Bed.”
She told TalkTV Drivetime: ‘We crowded into the small bedroom where The Big Breakfast’s bed was, because it was in a real lockkeeper’s cottage.
“So a tiny little bedroom, there’s the bed, I’m lying on it and Rolf Harris next to me and the cameraman, director and Rolf Harris’s wife standing literally a foot next to the bed.
Vanessa Feltz has revealed how she was attacked by Rolf Harris during a 1996 interview on Channel 4’s The Big Breakfast
She described how Harris — whose death from neck cancer at age 93 was announced yesterday — pulled up her dress and tried to touch her underpants during a segment called “On The Bed.”
“We’re going live and I’m like, ‘Hello, guess who’s in bed with me today? It’s the great Rolf Harris”…. and I can hear this sound.’
She revealed that Harris “tightened up” her dress and pulled it “further and further and further down my legs.”
“And you can see me in one of the pictures, grabbing a blue pillow and putting it between us to try and put some space between me and him. And he completely ignored it,” she added.
The broadcaster said she felt his hand go “down my knees up to my thighs” as Harris’s wife was in the same room as her.
She said, “I didn’t know what to do because I knew I couldn’t say, ‘Get your hand off my leg’ or ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ or “Get off me” and I also couldn’t jump off the bed because I was all into the mic and it’s a live program. I didn’t know what to do at all.
‘I tried, as you can see, to put the pillow in between, it wasn’t good. I couldn’t go any further as you can see I would have fallen off the edge of the bed… his hand meanwhile got closer and closer and closer.
“And then it got to the edge of my pants, my underpants or whatever. My lingerie, and I knew if I didn’t do something right away it would be a full-blown attack.”
The 61-year-old, who says she watched the incident when she was interviewed by police while officers were investigating Harris, said she was so concerned about what happened that she told the crew to pull out of a commercial break early .
‘I just went [gasps] so, because the hand came straight up and I said like this, “Um, okay. Okay. Well, we’re going to a break now. We’re going to a break right away. That’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to… we’re going to break “We’re going to take a break now!” and then I jumped off the bed and then it was the ads.
The broadcaster, seen in London on Monday, said she felt his hand go “down my knees up to my thighs” as Harris’s wife stood in the same room as her
Harris’s wife Alwen, 91, a jeweler and sculptor, stood by him despite his conviction for numerous sexual assaults
“I didn’t say a single word, he didn’t say a single word, his wife didn’t say a single word, and when we came back after I just got back into bed and we moved on.”
Harris died of neck cancer and old age earlier this month after spending the last six years after his release from prison as a near-recluse with his wife, Alwen Hughes, in their £5 million riverside mansion in Bray, Berkshire.
News of the abuser’s May 10 death and his subsequent secret cremation was revealed yesterday after it was registered with Windsor and Maidenhead Council, shutting down some of his victims.
Dr. Lin Berwick, who accused him of assaulting her when she was 27, yelled “Yippee, thank God,” while BBC radio presenter Karen Gardner – who claims she was assaulted by him when she was 16 – pointed to a statement in which she described as ‘bad’.