BBC sex pest ‘flashed’ at me as I read news, says Angela Rippon
ANGELA RIPPON has told of her horror when a senior BBC journalist appeared to expose himself in front of her when she was on live TV. Angela told Radio 4’s The Reunion: “One of my male colleagues came into the studio while I was reading the 9 o’clock news live in front of 10 million people or whatever and I assumed he was coming in with a script of some sort.
Angela Rippon: Senior BBC journalist 'flashed' at me
“Out of the corner of my eye I realised that he was unzipping his flies and suddenly there was something white in his hand being wriggled around.
“We went to a film and I looked across and what he had actually done was unzipped his flies and taken out the bottom of his shirt.
“Obviously I was supposed to think he was wiggling his penis at me.”
The 74-year-old added: “I was angry because I felt this was so disrespectful.
I have never named him and I won’t, but he was one of the BBC’s highly respected reporters at the time
“I have never named him and I won’t, but he was one of the BBC’s highly respected reporters at the time and I looked at him and just said, ‘For crying out loud – his name – grow up and just get out’.
“At the time [women] were very much in the minority and I knew that if I said this is what he has done to me while I was reading the news live on air, well at that time he would have got a slap on the wrist.”
Angela joined fellow pioneering female journalists Julia Somerville, Sue Lawley and Jan Leeming for the radio show – presented by Sue McGregor – to discuss how it was for women broadcasters in the 1970s.
Sue Lawley said: “I’d had my first child in 1976 and [when] I went back to work really had quite a few letters from women.
“Saying what are you doing occupying a job that a man could have.”
Julia confessed to considering wearing a wig on television to avoid being spotted in real life.
Angela hit a different sort of stardom when she appeared on the Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show in 1976, displaying her now famous high kick to 28 million viewers.
●The Reunion: Pioneering Women Newsreaders is on Radio 4 today at 11.15am.