The actress, 48, has spoken publicly for the first time about the horrific attack that happened early in her career — and says she was made to feel she had brought it on herself
Rivals star Katherine Parkinson has opened up about a horrific assault that left her unconscious, hospitalised and with a broken nose after trying to defend a female friend from a male attacker.
The actress, 48, who plays Danny Dyer‘s on-screen lover Lizzie Vereker in the Disney bonkbuster, spoke about the incident publicly for the first time this week.
The attack happened just before landing her first TV roles – in the BBC’s Casualty and Extras – in 2005, when she was a struggling stage actress staying in what she called “the cheapest digs” in an unnamed town outside London. She had been walking back from the theatre with a colleague when a man with a history of similar violence turned aggressive.
“A guy who had previous form of doing this got into a bit of a disagreement with this colleague of mine,” Katherine recalled. “I said ‘leave her alone’ and he knocked me out cold and broke my nose. He was, I think, immediately arrested. He certainly went to prison for ABH.”
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The mother of two, who last week won her second Bafta for her role in BBC Three comedy Here We Go, said her ordeal didn’t end with the attack itself. Recovering in hospital, she was made to feel a sense of class-based shame rather than sympathy.
“I remember somebody saying to me, ‘What were you doing?’ There was a sense that I had brought it on myself,” she said.
The Oxford-educated actress said the judgement was made all the more painful by the social dynamics already in her life. Surrounded by wealthier friends from university, she had long felt treated like a “cheaper commodity” — people who would offer lifts to others but not to her — “when, you know, I was just as vulnerable.”
Speaking on the How To Fail podcast, Katherine said she went straight back to work. “I put an eye patch on and was on stage in a different city the next week,” she said — though she described enduring stares from strangers. “I had a terribly messed-up face for a while and I felt a judgment from people that didn’t know me, that I was a hard person that lived a hard life. And that couldn’t have been further from the truth.”
She also hit out at the lack of support from the industry at the time. “There was no counselling, no real pastoral care. It was a bit embarrassing for people to see.”
Now married to actor Harry Peacock, Katherine — who will play matriarch Molly Weasley in the new HBO Harry Potter series — says the assault left a lasting legacy – particularly as a parent. “I’m really neurotic when it comes to my daughters about walking anywhere on their own,” she admitted.
But she says she is finally making peace with how the experience changed her. “I’m giving myself, now I’m 48, just a bit more licence to realise that your experience informs who you are. Unfortunately, a literal smack in the face changes you. I think just talking about it is good.”
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