Genevieve Chenneour, the actress from Bridgerton, recently shared how she defended herself against a thief who attempted to snatch her phone at a busy central London café. Daily Mail released a video showing the 27-year-old actress, who plays Miss Clara Livingston in Bridgerton, sitting with her dog at a West London café when a man approached and tried to take her phone from the counter beside her.
Prior to her acting career, Chenneour was a trained boxer with the Amateur Boxing Association and had been a professional athlete, representing Team GB in international artistic swimming events. The video, recorded in February, captures her realizing her phone was being taken and striking the thief multiple times to retrieve it. The entire incident reportedly lasted about five minutes, with the man mostly on the ground.
Taking to her TikTok account, Chenneour declared that the thief had “messed with the wrong girl” and also discussed the incident on the ITV morning show This Morning. Chenneour explained, “I had a bit of a sixth sense that something wasn’t quite right, as a woman you have that kind of intuition. I don’t know if I would advise anybody else to do it.”
The Phantom of the Open star further added, “I think I have very quick reactions, thanks to having three brothers growing up and I’m an amateur carded boxer. I think it just was an instinct, I also do a lot of fight training for work and acting…I thought that was a normal reaction and I read all the comments [online] and realised, actually, a lot of people would just let them take the phone.”
She recalled, “It kind of went round the corner and it turned into a full-on scrap with two people [Boulares and his accomplice]. And I was threatened with being stabbed so it became a real matter, in my mind, of life and death.” Chenneour noted, “So, I did things like, I remember kicking him back with my leg to create space in case he had a weapon on him… It was just a life-changing, crazy moment.”
