Vanessa Feltz is claiming that Mohammed Al Fayed sexually harassed her. She says (from around 6:20 in the video) that she was at a bar mitzvah in Claridges when she was 40, minus her partner, and Al Fayed made a "beeline" for her, came over all "hot and heavy" and persistently asked her to come up to his suite in the hotel and admire the view. She also claimed to have been groped by Rolf Harris, claiming that while filming the Big Breakfast reclining on a bed, he had inched his hand up her leg to her knickers while she was wearing a long, figure-hugging and heavily beaded dress. Quite some feat, and in full view of the crew and camera too. No photo (except one of her with her legs tucked up and him nowhere near them) or footage of this incident has ever emerged - naturally! There also used to be a video on YouTube of her being interviewed on the red carpet at a theatre premiere of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (about conmen), when she claimed to have been conned by doorstep sellers who redid her roof (as you do).

I wonder if she has a personal anecdote for every occasion and how much truth there is to any of them.

This may not be relevant to anyone being a victim of harassment or groping, but as a matter of interest, Vanessa Feltz happens not to be averse to a bit of lewdness herself. Here she is romping with Freddie Starr, including making a grab for his buttocks at 4:12.

isn't there video of her doing something odd to a young man?

Didn't she also say she was abused by Rolf Harris? Just after he was convicted. Funny how she never said anything before. Odious woman.

Talk about turning on a sixpence! Here is what she said, only a year ago, about al-Fayed when they met at a bar mitzvah at Claridge's in 2002:

We hit it off instantly. He was an accomplished flirt, witty, saucy, wry, challenging and unpredictable. I enjoyed his company enormously.

He was also a terrific radio show guest: good value, controversial and compelling. Most people are none of the above. Just saying.

www.express.co.uk/comment/columnists/van...ers-celebs-go-dating

Feltz is a ghastly woman off-camera. My sister had a pub near the big studios in London. She has met hundreds of famous people, you do in hospitality. When a group of ladies went to the pub they caught some famous stars in the pub. Feltz shouted "No autographs" like people would be interested in her autograph. A few other celebrities looked around and blushed. Feltz drew more attention when she screeched.

Another one who could of been a bit was Prunella Scales, this was years before her dementia. If people wanted her autograph you had to promise her it wouldn't go on eBay. Like that would bring in some life-changing money.

Celebs are a strange lot.

When I was at Wimbledon in about 1999 queueing up in the rain to get in, Feltz was interviewing people in the queue, like a large whale in a raincoat screeching annoyingly. When she came close to me I turned my back on her in disgust making it clear that I didn't want any part in her tv show. Horrible woman, thank god she's gone to LBC away from mainstream radio.

md wrote:
Talk about turning on a sixpence! Here is what she said, only a year ago, about al-Fayed when they met at a bar mitzvah at Claridge's in 2002:

We hit it off instantly. He was an accomplished flirt, witty, saucy, wry, challenging and unpredictable. I enjoyed his company enormously.

He was also a terrific radio show guest: good value, controversial and compelling. Most people are none of the above. Just saying.

www.express.co.uk/comment/columnists/van...ers-celebs-go-dating


This rings true.

She was on that radio/tv hybrid thing Talk TV this time last year gushing quite happily in positive fashion about Al-Fayed who had just passed away a day or two earlier.

Something is not right here. You can't just do a 180 degree turnaround on someone like that.

Excellent find, md! The recollections from Green Man, robbiex and Jon are very interesting too.

She's beyond belief. Here she is writing in The Express.

Vanessa Feltz: I rejected Al Fayed's sleazy advances - this is what the monstrous man did

The whole video is problematic, with Freddie Starr rubbing himself up against two young women, who I assume didn't have prior knowledge of this stunt.

If it happened surely Channel 4 would of had footage in the archives. Channel 4 could of ruined Rolf Harris at that moment.

Feltz acting very dramtic and aninmated is laughable on Talk TV.

It seems there a of flirting going on breakfast TV back then.

I had to watch the video Jo,

It's interesting with Freddie Starr, I am surprised she didn't mention him during Yewtree.

I did serve Freddie with either his manager or assistant. Both wanted non-alcholic drinks.

I think he was doing a TV thing or shows in Ireland at the time. I did hear that Freddie could be very rude to people and vulgar towards fans.

I thought he was nice bloke, maybe because I didn't ask for an autograph or talk about hamsters.

How did Feltz find fame she never does anything in the media?

Jo wrote:
She's beyond belief. Here she is writing in The Express.

Vanessa Feltz: I rejected Al Fayed's sleazy advances - this is what the monstrous man did

some of the comments are amusing:

"in your dreams darling"

Comment by imppy55.
14 hrs ago

"He must have been desperate".

interesting videos Green Man.

I knew Michael Hutchence very well and he was one of the nicest people in show biz I've ever met.

He and Paula were such a tragic tale.

As for Rolf..met him at a show biz party and he shook my hand and then held it and my elbow with the other hand as he listened politely to what I was saying.

I reckon he was a very tactile person (I'm not so always notice). How many women mistook this for abuse?

hedda wrote:
some of the comments are amusing:

"in your dreams darling"

Comment by imppy55.
14 hrs ago

"He must have been desperate".
Haha, yes. Here's another one: "Any minute now we'll hear how Nora Batty, Madge and Mrs Bucket claim they were asked by Al-Fayed if they'd like to see his obelisk!"

I think Feltz's story about Rolf Harris was a complete invention, as her turnaround on Fayed suggests. There's no way anyone could have got their hand up a long, figure-hugging, heavily beaded dress all the way to her knickers, unless she was lying flat on her back with her legs straight out, and even then it would probably have been difficult and surely impossible to do surrepticiously in front of cameras. When she revived the story after he died, she introduced the cushion, which can be seen in the photos, claiming that she put it between them to fend him off. She didn't mention it after his conviction in 2014. I think she'd had another look at the photos and decided to give the cushion a starring role in her tale.

I wonder if the media will be reminding her of her gushing tribute to Al Fayed when he died. I bet they won't.

hedda wrote:
interesting videos Green Man.

I knew Michael Hutchence very well and he was one of the nicest people in show biz I've ever met.

He and Paula were such a tragic tale.

As for Rolf..met him at a show biz party and he shook my hand and then held it and my elbow with the other hand as he listened politely to what I was saying.

I reckon he was a very tactile person (I'm not so always notice). How many women mistook this for abuse?

A drummer from a band (won't say who the band member was, nor will I mention the band) held my elbow as we spoke and rubbed my belly afterwards. He was making me at ease being a bit star-struck. I never know what to say at meet and greets, which I got for free. There were dozens of people there but he took a shine to me.

Jo wrote:
hedda wrote:
some of the comments are amusing:

"in your dreams darling"

Comment by imppy55.
14 hrs ago

"He must have been desperate".
Haha, yes. Here's another one: "Any minute now we'll hear how Nora Batty, Madge and Mrs Bucket claim they were asked by Al-Fayed if they'd like to see his obelisk!"

I think Feltz's story about Rolf Harris was a complete invention, as her turnaround on Fayed suggests. There's no way anyone could have got their hand up a long, figure-hugging, heavily beaded dress all the way to her knickers, unless she was lying flat on her back with her legs straight out, and even then it would probably have been difficult and surely impossible to do surrepticiously in front of cameras. When she revived the story after he died, she introduced the cushion, which can be seen in the photos, claiming that she put it between them to fend him off. She didn't mention it after his conviction in 2014. I think she'd had another look at the photos and decided to give the cushion a starring role in her tale.

I wonder if the media will be reminding her of her gushing tribute to Al Fayed when he died. I bet they won't.

Surely the video of would have been leaked to the media. He probably touched her knee or thigh. Ok, it might have been very inappropriate but he didn't finger her.

robbiex wrote:
The whole video is problematic, with Freddie Starr rubbing himself up against two young women, who I assume didn't have prior knowledge of this stunt.

Over the past year or two I've dipped into some of the old pranks that Jeremy Beadle used to do on Beadle's About and also Game For A Laugh, a must watch Saturday show when it first appeared this week back in 1981, and many of us sure need to find some laughs nowadays don't we.

If you look at these programmes now it is interesting to see how Jeremy interacts with his female guests and victims of his pranks when he reveals himself. More often than not he will grab them and give them a massive big hug and have his arm around them and also go in for a kiss quite fast and without warning. Even in the studio when rewatching the pranks with them. Now this was perfectly normal behaviour back then in the still very recent past and clearly meant as a friendly and warm gesture when it happened, and nothing more. Professionally and personally almost nobody ever had a bad word to say about him let's face it and he was genuinely well liked.

As I watched and enjoyed many of these shows I instinctively found myself thinking, 'oh you couldn't quite do that now or someone would say something' about your behaviour, and then realised how sad it was that I was looking at something so normal from the 1980s and 1990s and now beginning to question it a little as less than normal or acceptable, when it was then.

It just made me wonder if someone could successfully manufacture a sexual assault charge against someone nowadays for the act of putting their arm around them and kissing them without permission back in 1985.

Green Man wrote:
If it happened surely Channel 4 would of had footage in the archives. Channel 4 could of ruined Rolf Harris at that moment.
I suspect that Channel 4 might still have the footage exonerating Rolf Harris and that's why they haven't released it. The media have said nothing about William Merritt's book "Rolf Harris: The defence team's special investigator reveals the truth about the trials" or said anything in Rolf Harris's favour since he was convicted in his first trial, acquitted in his second and third trials and had one conviction overturned on appeal (the one based on the allegations of Wendy Wild/Rosher, who claimed he'd molested her in an autograph queue when she was 7/8 - so arguably the most serious allegation as her age at the time of the alleged abuse was the youngest among the four accusers, and she was the first to give evidence and set the tone for the prosecution; she was also backed up in court by a male fantasist; the alleged event at her local crummy community centre never took place and Rolf Harris never met her, yet she extracted 20,000 pounds from him; she's now dead and good riddance).

The police probably wouldn't want any footage released either if it was in any way helpful to Rolf Harris's case or showed them in a questionable light. According to Feltz (if anything she says is to be believed), they approached her about Rolf Harris, not the other way around. See this caption under the second video clip:

"The police came to me, I didn't go to them": Vanessa Feltz on BBC London 94.9"

www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-28190812

So I think she just gave them what they wanted.