Helen Skelton has opened up about a shocking incident from early in her career, revealing she was groped by a man while presenting live television – and she was pregnant at the time.
The TV star, who rose to fame on Blue Peter in 2008 and has since appeared on shows like Strictly Come Dancing and Dan & Helen’s Pennine Adventure, said the ordeal happened at a sporting event in 2014 when she was interviewing a male guest.
“Basically this guy grabbed me on the backside when I was presenting live telly. I felt really awkward about it, I was pregnant at the time as well. I didn’t really know what to do,” Helen told The Telegraph.
She admitted she felt too intimidated to raise a formal complaint, explaining: “You don’t want to be the person who’s being difficult and awkward. That’s just the culture that television breeds. No one wants to be difficult – you want to bring solutions, not problems. We are all ‘happy, happy…’”
Helen was expecting her first child, son Ernie, at the time. She later welcomed two more children, Louis in 2017 and Elsie in 2021, with her now ex-husband Richie Myler.
The incident was eventually addressed after fellow presenter Colin Murray intervened. “[Colin] kicked off and said that needs dealing with. It was handled brilliantly because of that. I’d never thought about complaining. I don’t want it to become my identity. The man in question was punished. There was a line drawn under it, and that was that,” she said.
