Rylan Clark opens up about ‘horrendous’ period after fellow X Factor star Lucy Spraggan was raped by hotel porter
Rylan Clark has opened up about how he helped his fellow X Factor contestant Lucy Spraggan after she was raped during the time they appeared on the programme.
The two became friends when they competed on the show in 2012, until she suddenly quit during its live rounds – with programme-makers saying her departure was due to “illness”.
Last year, Spraggan revealed in a memoir that she was attacked by a hotel porter after a night out celebrating Clark’s birthday at a Mayfair nightclub, which was attended by members of The X Factor production team.
The singers became friends during their time on The X Factor in 2012. Pic: Beretta/Sims/Shutterstock
In a new interview, Clark, now a broadcaster and media personality, said it was a “horrendous” period and that he had kept the details “quiet” for 11 years.
“That was a really, really tough time,” he told The Guardian. “It was horrendous and I’ve still not spoken about it because it’s not my story to tell, even though I was part of it.
“As a 24-year-old, it was the night of my birthday, to wake up to your friend saying, ‘I was raped last night’, while being on the biggest show in the country while being followed by the press wherever you go… I don’t know how I did it.”
Clark, now 35, said Spraggan dubbed him Jessica Fletcher – Dame Angela Lansbury’s character in Murder, She Wrote – because he leapt into action, telling TV researchers to “go and get the bosses” and making sure the hotel bedroom was not cleaned by staff, to preserve the crime scene.
“I became like a crime detective and I don’t know why that was,” he said.
Spraggan left the show unexpectedly
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In her memoir, titled Process: Finding My Way Through, Spraggan said she had to take a drug used to prevent HIV, which made her too unwell to continue on the programme.
She also said the TV production team called the police and an arrest was quickly made, but she believed they were “unprepared” to deal with the situation.
Asked about it, Clark said: “There was a lot that could have been improved. I think everyone learned loads from those kind of mistakes, but I don’t think it was anyone’s fault other than the man who raped Lucy.”
He added: “I’ve worked on reality shows for 12 years now, and I’ve seen the change in duty of care. It’s everyone’s priority now.”
James Arthur was crowned the winner of The X Factor that year. Spraggan went on to have two top-10 albums in the UK charts, with Join The Club reaching seven in 2013 and Choices peaking at five in 2021.
A spokesperson for Fremantle, the British TV company that produced The X Factor for ITV under its Thames TV entertainment arm, previously described the assault on Spraggan as “a truly horrific criminal act for which the perpetrator, who was not connected with the programme, was rightfully prosecuted and imprisoned”.
The spokesperson said: “Anyone should feel safe when they are sleeping in a hotel room and it is abhorrent to think that a hotel porter abused that trust in such a vile way.
“To our knowledge, the assault was an event without precedent in the UK television industry. Whilst we believed throughout that we were doing our best to support Lucy in the aftermath of the ordeal, as Lucy thinks we could have done more, we must therefore recognise this.
“For everything Lucy has suffered, we are extremely sorry. Since then, we have done our very best to learn lessons from these events and improve our aftercare processes.
“Whilst we have worked hard to try and protect Lucy’s lifetime right to anonymity, we applaud her strength and bravery now that she has chosen to waive that right.”
Entertainment
‘People want you to stay in your lane’: Reese Witherspoon on her ‘deeply personal’ decision to write a novel
It is “pretty surreal”, Academy Award winner Reese Witherspoon admits, finding herself at the top of The New York Times bestsellers list.
When I meet the actress alongside her co-writer, best-selling author Harlan Coben, overnight the pair have learned that their thriller is now at number one.
He jokes: “I was texting her last night and saying you’ll now have to call yourself number one bestselling novelist, forget about Oscar winner!”
Reese Witherspoon and Harlan Coben told Katie Spencer about their novel Gone Before Goodbye
As one of the most successful authors in the world, Coben has sold over 80 million books to date, while for Witherspoon this is new ground.
Not content with running a hugely successful production company responsible for a string of hits, as well as one of the most successful book clubs in the world, she explains she felt compelled to give writing a try.
“People want you to stay in your lane… as a creative person I think it’s impossible to just choose one kind of life.
“Creativity is infinite and who I was as a creative person when I was 20 is very different from the person I am now at 49.”
Gone Before Goodbye, a thriller about a talented surgeon who finds herself caught up in a deadly conspiracy, is the result of Witherspoon daring to put her head above the parapet.
Witherspoon says she felt compelled to give writing a try
Coben admits he was “a little wary” at first.
“I don’t co-write novels but when she made the pitch and started talking about it, I was like ‘dang that’s good, we can do something with that’.”
While countless celebrities work with ghostwriters, Coben says: “I said to her from day one ‘it’s only going to be you and me in here… no third person in here, I don’t do that’. So every word you [read] comes from Reese and me.”
Coben has sold over 80 million books to date, while for Witherspoon this is new ground
Witherspoon explains: “He was like ‘if we’re going to do this, it’s going to have to be at a really high level because people going to expect a lot, so our bar was really high.”
“I said to her, in the beginning, novels are like a sausage,” Coben laughs. “You might like the final taste, but you don’t want to see how it was made and Reese got to see the full sausage getting made here.”
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When it came to writing, Coben says they “fell into a rhythm right away”, working together in three-hour stints, “back and forth with a yellow legal pad – what about this? What about that?”
Coben says they ‘fell into a rhythm right away’
Witherspoon says it “feels really deeply personal” to have their work now in print.
“Usually, as an actor, I walk into other people’s worlds and it’s already set up… but this was creating the whole world with Harlan and just from beginning to end feels very personal.”
While the story seems an obvious fit for being adapted to the screen, perhaps with a certain blonde actress in the leading role, Coben says that was never their intention.
“The biggest, biggest mistake novelists make when you write a book is to say ‘this would make a really great movie’. A book is a book, a movie is a movie, and we both focused on wanting this to be just a great reading experience.”
Given that their collaboration is already selling in big numbers, will the pair team up again to write a second?
Witherspoon says: “Let’s just see what people think of this one first.”
Kim Kardashian has revealed that she has been diagnosed with a brain aneurysm.
- Footage from the latest season of The Kardashians shows the reality TV star going for an imaging scan.
The 45-year-old appears to suggest her small aneurysm may have stemmed from stress.
Brain aneurysms are relatively common, with data suggesting they affect about one in every 50 people.
In many cases, patients may be unaware that they have one – as they tend to cause few symptoms when unruptured.
Brain aneurysms are common but often go undiagnosed. iStock file pic
Should an unruptured aneurysm grow to a larger size, it can cause headaches, balance problems and speech issues.
Those that burst are extremely dangerous and can prove fatal in some circumstances.
While aneurysms can emerge throughout the body, they are most typically found in the aorta, which carries blood out of the heart.
Research suggests brain aneurysms are most common in adults between the ages of 30 and 60 – with women disproportionately affected.
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Associate professor of neurology Dr Laura Stein told Sky’s US partner NBC News: ” The most well-described risk factors include a predisposition [family history of aneurysm], high blood pressure, cigarette smoking and inflammation.”
She went on to explain that most fatal ruptured aneurysms are in the brain, killing about one in three patients.
“When it’s a blood vessel that’s in the head and it bleeds, there’s a much higher risk of having a very bad problem just because the brain is enclosed in a fixed space,” Dr Stein added.
Low-risk aneurysms are monitored by doctors for growth or abnormalities, and there are a series of potential treatment options for those considered dangerous.
Elsewhere in The Kardashians clip, Kim admitted that her ex-husband Kanye West will be in her life “no matter what” because of the four kids they share together.
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