Bridgerton actress Genevieve Chenneour says she was assaulted in London for the second time this year.
The 27-year-old, who played Clara Livingston in the Netflix hit, said in a tearful Instagram video that she was walking to an audition when a man struck her near Oxford Circus in central London.
“Guys, literally five minutes before my audition, I was walking around the corner at Oxford Circus and this guy just looks at me, and targets me, and f—ing hits me,” she said, tearfully recounted in the video, filmed in a private space just above the audition room. She described being knocked “against the wall” with no warning and then having to walk straight into a professional setting, still trembling. “I had to come in, and I’m trying to gather myself, but I’m so shaken.”
Chenneour said she was left “shaken” by the new attack and had “kept on having panic attacks” in the aftermath. She added that simply being in central London felt “nerve-racking” because this was not her first violent encounter in the capital this year. The earlier incident happened in February, when she was caught in a confrontation with a teenage phone thief in Kensington, a posh part of West London.
That first episode began while she was buying a coffee inside a Joe and the Juice location. As she stood at the counter, 18-year-old Zacariah Boulares slipped behind her and grabbed her iPhone 14.
Chenneour said she heard the theft as it happened and immediately reacted, turning to confront the teen thief. Her ex-partner, Carlo Kurcishi, then wrestled Boulares to the ground. The moment left her shaken but, she said, she eventually began to rebuild her confidence.
The thief was sentenced to 22 months in jail in July for common assault and multiple counts of theft, according to the Daily Mail.
According to Chenneour, the second assault came just as she felt ready to return to life in London. She said she had been considering moving back before the attack outside her audition. She described her attacker as “about 50 years old, 6ft 3in, Black, wearing a dark-coloured hat and black clothes.”
Chenneour emphasized that the two encounters—months apart but both unprovoked—had taken a mental toll.
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