Ulrika 'was raped by casual date'
Ulrika Jonsson is set to claim on national televison that she was raped by a casual date in the early days of her career, it emerged today.
The programme – Ulrika Jonsson: The Trouble with Men – is to be screened on Channel 4 tomorrow night.
The intimate portrait will show a darker side to the well-publicised love life of the former weather girl, according to its director, Nick Godwin.
Speaking about the rape claim, Jonsson, 35, tells how she ended up in hospital for five days following the alleged assault.
She will say: “He forced himself upon me. It frightened me a lot. I became quite ill for a period after that.”
Jonsson says that as well as suffering physical injuries, the incident had left her “f....d up in the head.”
When asked by the interviewer why she did not report the rape to the police, she answers: “Because I genuinely felt that it would be my word, I guess, against his. And I think you know, I felt ashamed.”
Godwin says: “It made her mistrustful of men and suspicious of sex for quite a time, until she met her husband.”
Though the experience apparently left Jonsson psychologically bruised, her personal life appeared to settle down when she married cameraman John Turnbull, with whom she has one son, Cameron.
In the programme, Jonsson also admits she would have carried on her affair with England manager Sven-Goran Eriksson, had it not become front page news.
She says: “I would have never have wanted it to come out. A – because it was something I was able to keep private and personal for once, or you know, certainly the beginning of it.
“Secondly, because the pressure is so intense and the pressure became too much for me, which is why I chose to walk away.
“It became too much for me and for my family to bear and I wanted to put an end to that.”
Godwin says the doomed affair was a particularly harsh blow after a history of failed relationships.
He says: “I think she felt disappointed by his (Eriksson’s) behaviour. Of all the men on that sorry list, excepting her husband, Sven seemed to be the one relationship that was working well, so I think she was disappointed when it broke that he could not deal with it.”
She claims Eriksson pursued their “lovely Swedish friendship” relentlessy.
“I was attracted to his age and to his maturity and his calm. The relationships I had had before were erratic and emotionally unstable and psychologically challenging. And this one I knew wouldn’t be like that, it was going to be completely different.”
But when news of the scandal broke, Eriksson not only refused to acknowledge the affair but stuck by his long-term partner Nancy Dell’Olio, having apparently promised to dump her after the World Cup.
Throughout the film, which follows Jonsson at home with her children, on holiday in St Tropez when topless photographs appear in the British press and buying a house in Sweden, she refers to Eriksson in a joking manner.
She says: “I kept asking him why he was prepared to take this risk publicly and his answer was, some risks are worth taking. I think he is eating his words now.”
The programme also revisits Ulrika’s earlier flings following the break-up of her marriage to Turnbull, and she suggests the papers portrayed her as going from “girl next door” to “a bad person, even sluttish and soiled” as her affair with Gladiator Hunter was revealed.
Over the next few years Jonsson became known as a raunchy “ladette”, appearing on surreal BBC game show Shooting Stars and renowned for being able to down a pint of lager in less than 30 seconds.
Her wild life culminated in a violent night out in Paris with footballer Stan Collymore, who hit her a number of times.
But even Collymore’s love rat credentials were eclipsed by the behaviour of Jonsson’s next fling – German resort manager Markus Kempen.
Just days after their baby girl, Bo, was born with a serious heart defect, Kempen walked out on Jonsson, leaving her suicidal.
She says: “When Bo’s father walked out on me, and in fact just before Bo was born, I didn’t want to live, because I was so frightened.”
Delving further into her past, Jonsson also talks about her late father, whom she describes as a “ladies man” who “walked around naked the whole time”.
Although they remained close until his death in 1995, she speaks of her early experiences of witnessing “a lot of sexual relationships” which left her with “a slightly screwy attitude to sex”.
“Her relationship with her father has scewed her relationship with men,” says Godwin.
“Also she has inherited a hedonistic nature from him. She is often quite impulsive – if she likes a man she does not hang around.”
He says that digging deep into Jonsson’s past will help the public to understand her, as well as herself.
“Ulrika thought about why she has made so many disastrous choices and was happy to talk about them. I think it will change people’s opinon of her,” he adds.
* Ulrika Jonsson: The Trouble with Men will be on Channel 4, Thursday October 17, 9pm
