Rachel Riley reveals she caught male celebrity secretly upskirting her at party
5 May 2022, 13:07
Rachel Riley has revealed a male celebrity upskirted her at a party in front of her husband and watched it on his Apple watch with his mates.
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The Countdown presenter said she was playing table tennis with her husband Pasha Kovalev when the male celebrity "brazenly" put his phone under her skirt.
The maths whizz said the male star casually tried to use this iPhone as a camera - then looked at the "live" footage in front of friends on his Apple watch.
Ms Riley, 36, would not reveal the name of the man, but said he is well known.
Ms Riley spoke about the distressing incident for the first time on the Dirty Mother Pukka podcast, saying she was "too polite" and if it happened again she would "break the phone".
Her husband Mr Kovalev, a professional on Strictly Come Dancing, stepped in and removed the phone from under his wife's skirt.
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She said: "One who shall remain nameless for the purposes of this podcast, who people would know, I think he got an Apple Watch and at a party, at a friend’s house.
"I was playing table tennis with Pash and this guy, in full view of everyone came and 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 like a video basically, so he went and put his phone down so he could look up my skirt and then went two metres away so he could look at his phone and look up my skirt.
"Pasha went and picked his phone up and politely took it to him and gave him a really awful look, like what the hell are you doing?”
The mother-of-two said she wishes she broke the phone and got police involved, following years of trolling and harassment.
She continued: "If someone tried to do that to me again, I would break their phone, if they’ve got a problem with that they can go to the police and we can deal with it in public.
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"A man thought he could get away with up skirting me on a video with his friends and it would be fine, now I would break his phone and deal with it afterwards."
Upskirting became illegal in 2019 under the Sexual Offences Act 2003. Those found guilty of taking a photo under someone's clothes without their permission can now face up to two years in prison.
It comes days after Anne Robinson, 77, announced she will be stepping down as the host of Countdown after one year "in the hot seat".
The former Weakest Link star joined the Channel 4 quiz show last year, becoming its sixth presenter and the first female to take the role.
Robinson, who recorded 265 episodes of the show, said she has had a "blast" hosting the show and stayed "longer than I signed up for".
"Now it is time for an older woman to take the reins," she added.
