The Swedish-British presenter Ulrika Jonsson wrote in her column for The Sun newspaper on Saturday that Rolf Harris molested her when he appeared as a showbiz guest on TV-am, the former ITV breakfast programme where she worked as a weather presenter. She said she was “deeply uncomfortable” when he embraced her instead of taking her hand. She said she admired him as an entertainer, but he abused her trust.
“I remember thinking that was either really flattering or a bit forward. Either way, it was confusing.
“Then his hand travelled down to my bum, gave it a few squeezes and stayed there for what felt like years but was probably only 30 seconds.
“But it was long enough for my 21-year-old self to feel deeply uncomfortable, and speechless. I know I won’t have been the only one who fell victim to his hands.”
The TV presenter added that people “didn’t pipe up or call anyone out” at this time around 35 years ago, especially if they were of a celebrity status.
“We may have come a long way in making that kind of behavior unacceptable but we still have miles to travel”, she noted.
Harris was loved by generations before he was found guilty in June 2014 of several indecent assaults on four underage girls in the 1970s and 1980s. He got five years and nine months in jail in that year but was freed on licence in 2017 after serving only three years. The Australian kids’ TV show presenter passed away on May 10 from neck cancer and “old age weakness” at his home in Bray, Berkshire, it was revealed this week.
After Harris’ death, presenter Vanessa Feltz also said that he “realised” that she “had no choice” but to endure him allegedly groping her live during a segment when she was the host of Channel 4’s morning talk show The Big Breakfast – which aired from 1992 to 2002.
Feltz said on This Morning on Wednesday that she “could hear” her dress being “crumpled up” by Harris while she was the interviewer on the bed. She added: “I didn’t know if anyone else had ever experienced that, I didn’t know… He had always been praised in front of me.
In 2013 police visited her house to ask about footage from the incident, Feltz said. Harris was the second person to be convicted under the high-profile sex crime investigation Operation Yewtree, started after abuse claims were made against late DJ and entertainer Jimmy Savile. Harris was put in prison for five years and nine months after being convicted of 12 assaults which occurred between 1968 and 1986.