Bridgerton actress Genevieve Chenneour revealed why she believes she was attacked twice within a year.
“They picked on me because I’m beautiful,” the 27-year-old told the Daily Mail, revealing that after being targeted twice by men in London, she still goes out—but only with friends.
The first attack on Chenneour, who played Clara Livingston in season 3 of the Netflix hit Bridgerton, occurred in February while she was having a coffee at Joe & The Juice in London’s upscale Kensington neighborhood, when a teen ambushed her and grabbed her phone.
CCTV footage shows a man dressed in black, later identified as 18-year-old Zacariah Boulares, standing behind the actress before snatching her phone. Her then-partner, Carlo Kureishi, immediately moved to retrieve it, which sparked a scuffle. When Boulares dropped the device, Chenneour grabbed it and smacked him over the head with it.
“That was the moment something took over me and the physical fight became life or death in my mind,” the actress later said of the incident, which left her with a concussion.
Boulares pleaded guilty to the attack in May, and was sentenced to 22 months in jail in July for common assault and multiple counts of theft.
However, Boulares’ alleged accomplice, who Chenneour says threatened to stab her, still remains at large.
“I have been followed by a car full of men. I have been chased down a road. I have been groped more times than I can count. These experiences accumulate and they shape your entire life. That is the reality for so many women,” the actress, who has campaigned for women’s safety in London since her first attack, told the Daily Mail.
According to the outlet, Chenneour has moved out of London to live with her mother since the February incident, but a second alleged attack has left her questioning whether she will return to the capital.
“I was preparing to move back into town as I have to be here for work. I don’t think I will now,” she said.
The November incident occurred in central London near the busy Oxford Circus, and the actress documented her reaction in a tearful Instagram video. “This guy just looks at me, and targets me, and f---ing hits me,” she said, recalling that she was on her way to an audition and had trouble stopping her panic attacks following the incident.
“I asked a woman nearby if she’d seen what happened. She didn’t engage—she just asked ‘Are you OK?’ as a formality," she added, commenting on the lack of public response to the man’s alleged aggression.
In 2022, the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, unveiled a public health strategy to keep women and girls safe and acknowledged that London’s streets are not safe for them.
“Women deserve so much better than the constant self-monitoring required simply to exist safely,” Chenneour said.
