Bianca Gascoigne, the TV star and adopted daughter of football legend Paul Gascoigne, has spoken out about one of the “worst ordeals” of her life on ITV’s This Morning. Aged just 16 at the time, Bianca recounted the alleged grooming she endured from Mohamed Al Fayed, former owner of Harrods.
During a candid chat with presenters Ben Shephard and Cat Deeley, Bianca revealed how her career progression to a fashion buyer at Harrods led to increased interactions with Al Fayed, which, according to her allegations, took a distressing turn.
Bianca claimed Al Fayed initially presented himself as supportive and paternal: “First of all it very much started with grooming, he always wanted to be there for me, very supportive. He told me I was doing very good, unfortunately, he would bring up my dad’s illness.
“He’d use that because he must of thought I was quite vulnerable. So he would say he would be the father figure.
“Shortly after it would be like the touching and then obviously leaning in for a kiss,” she added. “He put his tongue down my mouth and to be honest how I dealt with it was pretty much like an out-of-body experience.”
The star added that the unpleasant occurrences made her feel “dirty” and “scared” to open up as she held back tears. When questioned why she didn’t say anything at the time, she said: “There’s a lot of aspects to it and I just felt very very ashamed. I felt dirty, I just kind of pretended that it wasn’t happening. I just put it in a box and just moved on and tried to deal with it.”
But Bianca also said her mother became suspicious when Al Fayed offered to pay for elaborate gifts.
After hearing Bianca’s story, Ben also read out a statement from Harrods. He said: “So Harrods has been in touch and said ‘We are absolutely appalled by the allegations of abuse that have been perpetrated by Mohamed Al-Fayed.We sincerely apologise, it’s been our priority to settle claims in the in the quickest way possible for the lengthy legal proceedings for the women involved.
“‘While we cannot undo the past, we are determined to do the right thing as an organisation driven by the values we hold today to ensure such behaviour can never be repeated in the future.'”
Egyptian business owner Al Fayed, who passed away last year aged 94, has been accused of sexual misconduct by several women who worked for him. Many of the women felt unable to report what had been through until recently.
This Morning airs weekdays from 10am on ITV1.