Rachel Riley recalls incident in which celebrity tried to capture upskirt footage of her

‘Countdown’ presenter said the incident occurred at a party ‘in full view of everyone’

Louis Chilton
Friday 06 May 2022 14:21
Comments
What is upskirting and why is it now illegal?

Rachel Riley has recalled an incident in which an unnamed celebrity tried to film up her skirt using a mobile phone camera.

The Countdown presenter has spoken previously about receiving sexually explicit messages from strangers on social media, and recently praised the forthcoming Online Harms Bill, which seeks to regulate harmful online content.

During an appearance on the Dirty Mother Pukka podcast, Riley recalled: “One who shall remain nameless, who people would know, he just got an Apple Watch, and at a party at a friend’s house, I was playing table tennis with [husband Pasha Kovalev], and this guy, in full view of everyone, came, put his phone on the floor under my skirt where I was playing table tennis, and went and sat back down a couple of metres away while him and all his mates looked at his watch.

“It was a video basically. So he went and put his phone down so he could look up and went two metres away to go and look at his phone, look up my skirt.”

Riley claimed she was “too polite” after the incident, describing the perpetrator as someone whom “I wouldn’t call a friend”, but that people “would know”.

“Now, being able to digest it and think about it, if someone tried to do that to me again I would break their phone,” she added. “If they’ve got a problem with that, they can go to the police and we can deal with it in the public.

“That a man obviously thought he could get away with blatantly, brazenly putting his phone, upskirting me on a video for his friends on his phone, and it would be fine... Now I would just break his phone and deal with it afterwards.”

In 2019, the Voyeurism (Offences) Act, known colloquially as the “Upskirting Bill” was introduced into UK law. The bill made “upskirting” a criminal offense punishable by up to two years in prison.

Register for free to continue reading

Registration is a free and easy way to support our truly independent journalism

By registering, you will also enjoy limited access to Premium articles, exclusive newsletters, commenting, and virtual events with our leading journalists

Please enter a valid email
Please enter a valid email
Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number
Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number
Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number
Please enter your first name
Special characters aren’t allowed
Please enter a name between 1 and 40 characters
Please enter your last name
Special characters aren’t allowed
Please enter a name between 1 and 40 characters
You must be over 18 years old to register
You must be over 18 years old to register
Opt-out-policy
You can opt-out at any time by signing in to your account to manage your preferences. Each email has a link to unsubscribe.

By clicking ‘Create my account’ you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use, Cookie policy and Privacy notice.

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy policy and Terms of service apply.

Already have an account? sign in

By clicking ‘Register’ you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use, Cookie policy and Privacy notice.

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy policy and Terms of service apply.

Register for free to continue reading

Registration is a free and easy way to support our truly independent journalism

By registering, you will also enjoy limited access to Premium articles, exclusive newsletters, commenting, and virtual events with our leading journalists

Already have an account? sign in

By clicking ‘Register’ you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use, Cookie policy and Privacy notice.

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy policy and Terms of service apply.

Join our new commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in