Vanessa Feltz has confessed that she “didn’t want to upset” Rolf Harris’ wife when he assaulted her live on air during an interview on The Big Breakfast in 1996.
The 62-year-old presenter was chatting to the late entertainer on a bed when he began inappropriately touching her, but she chose not to make a scene because his “adoring” wife Alwen Hughes was just a few feet away in the studio.
In her new memoir Vanessa Bares All, Feltz writes: “I put the cushion I was leaning on between us. It made no difference. Rolf kept talking. His hand kept moving. His adoring wife was three feet away. We were live on TV. He was laughing as if everything was completely normal. I knew I couldn’t yell: ‘Rolf Harris is assaulting me!’ I didn’t want to upset Alwen and disturb our viewers. His hand curved round to my inner thigh.”
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Feltz quickly called for an ad break, despite not being cued to do so by the floor manager, and managed to disentangle herself from Harris’ grasp. Harris was later found guilty of 12 counts of indecently assaulting four girls in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s in June 2014.
(Image: Getty Images)
He was released in May 2017 having done time for three years out of a five-year and nine-month stretch, with one count of his sexual offences being thrown out by the courts later on.
Rolf died in May 2023 at the age of 93 after a battle with neck cancer, while his other half Alwen died aged 92 in September 2024.
Vanessa spilled the beans, insisting the show must go on and she “didn’t make a complaint” because she was clueless about his other dodgy dealings until the police started snooping around almost 20 years on.
Her words tell all: “Every TV presenter learns on Day One that you never throw to an ad break unless the floor manager cues you. That day, I had no choice. Just as Rolf’s hand touched my knicker elastic, I leaped a foot in the air and spluttered: ‘Oh, my goodness. Let’s go to a break. Now! Now! Now’. I disentangled his fingers by jumping off the bed. Utterly unperturbed, Rolf chatted calmly to Alwen. The ad break finished.
(Image: Dave Hogan/Hogan Media/REX/Shutterstock)
“Rolf and I climbed back on the bed and made polite televisual conversation until our interview wound up. I didn’t make a complaint. I didn’t want to ruin his marriage.
“I was fine, really, and this is crucial: I didn’t know Rolf was doing the same thing to other women, underage girls, children. I didn’t know his wife was often a hovering presence while he did it. I didn’t know he had ever behaved like that to any woman except me. I tried not to think about Rolf Harris after that and managed pretty well, until in 2013, when two police officers turned up at my front door as part of Operation Yewtree. They had the footage of my interview from 17 years earlier.”
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
