Angela Rippon has spoken for the first time about an incident in which a “highly respected” male colleague pretended to flash her when she was live on air.
As part of Radio 4’s The Reunion: Pioneering Women Newsreaders, Rippon shared her experience of being a female broadcaster in a male-dominated environment.
The presenter, 74, said the unnamed colleague unzipped his trousers and pretended to flash her while she was reading the news to an audience of 10 million BBC viewers.
“One of my male colleagues came into the studio while I was reading the Nine O’Clock News live in front of ten million people. I assumed he was coming in with a script,” she said.
“Out of the corner of my eye I realised that he was unzipping his flies,” she continued. “And as he was doing that suddenly there was something white in his hand being wriggled around.”
Unable to look away from the camera, she did not realise at first that he had not actually exposed himself to her, but had instead taken out the bottom of his shirt.
“Obviously I was supposed to think he was wiggling his penis at me,” she said.
Rippon said she did not report the incident, adding: “At that time he would have got a slap on the wrist and it would have gone round the newsroom in no time that Rippon can’t take a joke.”
“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. I just said, ‘For crying out loud ... grow up and just get out.’”
Rippon joined the BBC Nine O’Clock News programme in 1975, becoming the first female journalist permanently to present the corporation’s national news.
The Reunion: Pioneering Women Newsreaders also features contributions from Jan Leeming and Julia Somerville. It airs on Radio 4 on Sunday 5 May at 11.15am.
