They’ve targeted everyone from Bond girls to It-girls – but now the victims are fighting back.
Television presenter Alexa Chung has revealed that she clung on to her mobile phone after being targeted by a thief in the East End of Labour Mayor Sadiq Khan’s increasingly lawless London.
‘Someone tried to nick one off me the other day, but I refused to let them have it,’ says Alexa, 42, who was replaced by Holly Willoughby as Marks & Spencer’s ‘It-girl’.
Alexa says she was desperate not to let the criminal snatch her phone because she was involved in a gripping conversation at the time. ‘I was in the middle of a group chat and it was really fascinating,’ she tells podcast host Isaac Hindin-Miller. ‘I literally tight-gripped it and was like, ‘F*** you!’ Her defiant stance comes amid a spate of phone snatchings in the capital.
Alexa Chung has become the latest victim of London’s phone snatching epidemic
Former tennis star Annabel Croft had her device stolen ‘clean out of her hands’ by a thief on a bike outside King’s Cross station.
In March, I revealed that former ‘It-girl’ Lady Victoria Hervey was left deeply shaken after being robbed of her mobile phone in Pimlico by an e-bike rider. ‘A guy on an electric bike swiped it out of my hand and sped off with it,’ the Marquess of Bristol’s sister told me. ‘It’s such a shock.’
Even television legend Susan Hampshire has fallen victim, with the 87-year-old Monarch of the Glen star revealing that she had been robbed on the Tube earlier this year.
Former Bond girl Rosamund Pike recalled her own ’15 minutes’ of hell when she was punched in the face during a violent snatch attack, which saw her device stolen by a thief.
Camilla’s tipsy Strictly revelations
Chris Robshaw’s wife Camilla Kerslake has revealed the secret to lasting through the long Strictly shoots as a spectator
Former England rugby captain Chris Robshaw was the third contestant to be eliminated from this series of Strictly Come Dancing, and now his wife, soprano Camilla Kerslake, has revealed what really goes on in the audience.
‘You’re there for hours and hours and hours,’ she tells me at the Ivors Classical Awards at the BFI Southbank. ‘There’s a bar you just raided, you get so stressed.
‘People are like, ‘Oh, you look like you’re having such a good time on the TV’, and I’m, like, ‘Yes, because I was drunk’.’
King Charles, who caused a furore decades ago when he suggested he would be defender of faith in general, rather than defender of the [Christian] faith, has given a Buddha statue pride of place at Sandringham. He has had a pagoda-style pavilion constructed around The Laughing Buddha, given to Edward VII by his friend Admiral Sir Henry Keppel.
Budding blacksmith Keira forges ahead
If the acting work ever dries up for Keira Knightley, she could moonlight as a blacksmith. The actress celebrated her 40th birthday by carrying out a metal-working course in Wales.
‘I wanted to do something a bit strange and a chef friend was telling me about this place where he gets all his knives made,’ says Keira. ‘I went and made my own and it was amazing. I really enjoyed it.’
Samantha’s royal inspiration
Samantha Barks is gearing up for a series of performances in cathedrals across the UK
Les Miserables star Samantha Barks, who is about to give a series of performances in cathedrals, including Durham, Lincoln and Lichfield, reveals that she was inspired by the Princess of Wales.
‘The idea of cathedrals came about because I got this incredible honour a couple of years ago to sing at the wonderful Princess Catherine’s Together At Christmas,’ says the singer, 35.
‘The princess had specially requested for me to sing, so because of her I performed at Westminster Abbey. Even though it’s so grand, it made me appreciate the intimacy of cathedral spaces.’
Former Top Gear star James May admits he’s delaying his retirement from television because he is still desperate for attention. ‘I don’t like to examine myself too closely, but if I did, there might be, yes, a bit of neediness in there and a bit of a craving for relevance or just acknowledgement,’ says the 62-year-old presenter, who is back on our screens with James May’s Shed Load Of Ideas. ‘You don’t really know until you stop, do you? As well, it is enjoyment. I love making these things. It’s great fun.’
