‘awful’
Coleen Nolan reveals she almost fell victim to Jimmy Savile aged 14
COLEEN Nolan has revealed she almost fell victim to Jimmy Savile when she was just 14 years old.
The 54-year-old opened up about her experience with the predatory DJ as she appeared on Dan Wootton's talkRADIO Drive Time show today.
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Discussing the Me Too movement, the actress, who is appearing in The Thunder Girls, recalled: “I remember Jimmy Savile invited me to his hotel when I was 14 when my sisters were doing Top of the Pops.
“He didn’t do it in front of them but I went back after the show and said ‘oh Jimmy Savile has invited me back to his hotel suite’ and not thinking anything of it and not thinking I would go because to me even then he was just an old, ugly man but my sisters were like ‘did he now?’.”
The Loose Women star added: “Luckily my sisters and I had been in the business so I was kind of surrounded by older, lecherous guys I guess at that point.
“Also my sisters protected me, but I have thought since then if I had just been a young fan and thought ‘wow’, he was massive in his day, you would be so thrilled to tell your friends. Awful.”
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Savile, who hosted Top of the Pops, died in 2011 and the following year he was exposed as a paedophile.
It's estimated he sexually assaulted hundreds of women and children in a campaign of abuse lasting more than 50 years.
Aside from her close shave with Savile, Coleen said she was fortunate not to have been preyed on growing up in the limelight.
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Questioned whether she had ever experienced anything inappropriate, she said: “There were definitely things that looking back you think, yeah that did happen - whether it was inappropriate touching of you or whatever.
“I guess in those days… I guess I can’t say I look back and think that really affected me because it didn’t.
“I grew up where if someone did that to me I would turn around to them and go ‘if you do that to me again, I am going to smash your face in’. You know what I mean? It was just don’t do that again. But yeah it did go on, I’m sure.”
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