The actress said she did not complain because she “did not want to make a fuss”
Joanna Page attends a BBC launch event for Gavin and Stacey: The Finale(Image: PA)
Joanna Page, star of Gavin And Stacey, has revealed that she didn’t complain when she was groped by a “handsy” presenter of an entertainment show as she “did not want to make a fuss”.
The 48-year-old Welsh actress, best known for her role as Stacey Shipman in the popular TV series, expressed her belief that young actresses will always be susceptible to harassment due to their desperation for work. In her new memoir, Lush, she shares her own experiences of sexual harassment.
Speaking to the PA news agency, she said: “There are always going to be predators in an environment like this when you’ve got young, beautiful girls who are desperate to get a job.
“It is so hard to get that job.
“Most of the time the people who are giving you those jobs are older men and they know that you want the job and there’s a million girls out there trying to get the job. I think that will continue.
“I think things have got better and you’ve got intimacy coaches now who are fantastic.
“There’s a lot more safety there and you’ve got phone numbers you can phone to report people if you feel like you’re being bullied.
“But I think, personally, that it’s (sexual harassment) always going to continue because there’s too much opportunity for it to happen in this profession.”
Joanna added: “You don’t ever go, ‘Oh God, I’m going to report this’, because in those days you kind of didn’t, you just got on with it, it was what happened at work.
“It wasn’t every single job I went into, but in lots of different jobs there would be one type of thing.”
She remembered being cautioned by a female producer of an entertainment show that the presenter could be “very handsy with the women” and might start touching her, but that was “just him” and not to worry about it.
Joanna said: “I was in my dressing room and the producer came in and said, ‘Oh, just to give you a warning, he does like to get a bit ‘handsy’ with the women.
“I think he’s going to like you so just be prepared.
“And it was like, ‘Oh, Ok, right, well, I can deal with that.
“So I went out on set and we’re filming and then he starts groping me and I said something like, ‘God, I feel like I’m in Bristol Zoo’ and knocked his hand away.”
Joanna mentioned she tried to keep it lighthearted and wouldn’t have dreamt of making a complaint.
She added: “It’s all very well saying ‘You’ve got to do this, you’ve got to do that’ but you’re a woman, you’re in there and it’s so hard to get jobs anyway and you don’t want to make a fuss.
“I couldn’t have sat in a studio and gone, ‘Excuse me, can we please just stop this because he’s touching me up and completely groping me? I’m not happy with this’.
“For starters, I’m a people pleaser.
“I don’t want to make a fuss or draw attention to what’s going on.
“I just want to get on with it.
“So the only way to deal with it was laugh it off.”
Lush!: My Story – From Swansea To Stacey And Everything In Between by Joanna Page is set to be published on 25 September.