Genevieve Chenneour: ‘He threatened to stab me. I was terrified'

Times

3 hours ago

It was a Saturday morning in February when Genevieve Chenneour stepped into Joe & the Juice on Kensington High Street in London after having a facial nearby. The Bridgerton actress, 27, was with her boyfriend at the time, Carlo Kureishi, 30, the son of the writer Hanif Kureishi, and her black maltipoo, Ralph. She ordered an oat flat white and took a seat to wait for it.
While waiting for her coffee she noticed two men 'pacing back and forth in my peripheral vision'. Just before one of the men — dressed in a black tracksuit and baseball cap — swiped her phone from the table beside her, Chenneour felt 'a black cloud, a dark feeling, coming over me' and sensed that something bad was about to happen.
Realising her phone was gone, Chenneour lunged at him instantly. 'It was complete instinct,' she says. 'I wouldn't advocate for anyone doing something that would put them at risk.'
The thief, 18-year-old Zacariah Boulares, was a prolific offender with 12 prior convictions, including for threatening to behead the Welsh singer Aled Jones with a 20in machete in July 2023. He had served just 14 months of a 24-month sentence for that crime.
CCTV footage of the incident went viral when it was released last week after the case went to court not only because it captured Chenneour hurling herself at her assailant in a fearless — and triumphant — attempt to retrieve her phone, but because she was an actress from Netflix's glossy Regency drama.
Giving her first newspaper interview since making headlines, she describes the past week as 'surreal'. Her social media follower count has ratcheted up. 'Every time I go on Instagram I have a hundred more followers. Overnight another thousand.'
Women have been particularly supportive. 'I think it's been gratifying for them to watch the footage,' she says. 'Maybe because I got to live out a fantasy. We've all walked down the street in London thinking, what would I do if someone stole my phone?'
• This woman fought off her muggers. Could (and should) you?
Early reports referred to an unidentified male companion at the scene, but it was Kureishi who charged at the thief as Chenneour sprang into action.
'The footage everyone has seen was actually the tamest part,' she says. 'I got on his back while [Kureishi] was on the floor holding him down. Then he threatened to stab me, and I thought I was going to be killed. I was terrified.'
She was struck on the head and briefly lost consciousness. 'My doctor later confirmed I had a concussion. I had dizzy spells for weeks afterwards and I was terrified of going out alone. I still am.'
Kureishi, fortunately, was uninjured.
Onlookers in the café were stunned. Staff called the police immediately and locked the doors, preventing Boulares from escaping — until someone mistakenly signalled that officers had arrived when they hadn't. Chenneour and Kureishi let him go. He fled but was later arrested. He has since pleaded guilty to theft and assault and is due to be sentenced next month.
'He needs to go to prison and he needs psychological care,' she says. 'If criminals are not rehabilitated properly they'll likely commit more — maybe worse — crimes.'
Two weeks after the incident she was due to attend the Screen Actors Guild awards in Los Angeles, where Bridgerton had been nominated for best ensemble. Chenneour plays the sharp-tongued society gossip Clara Livingston. 'I thought I wouldn't be able to go, which would have been devastating. I'm so glad I was able to make it, but I was still very shaken when I was out there.'
She remains unsettled. 'Like most women I was already hypervigilant of men in public spaces,' she says. 'Now it's even worse. Festivals this summer are off the table. I don't want to be around a load of men, in minimal clothing.'
She's speaking to me via Zoom from her mother's home in Portsmouth. She's recently left west London — her base for seven years — after the end of her three-year relationship with Kureishi. 'After the phone incident and the break-up I just hit rock bottom,' she says. She left with a few personal belongings and custody of Ralph.
'Maybe this all has to happen so I can start afresh,' she adds. 'It's been a major shock for me — and terrifying — but now I can prioritise my career, myself and my friends.'
Her reaction that day may not have surprised those who know her. Before acting, Chenneour was one of Britain's most promising young athletes: a teenage soloist on Team GB's synchronised swimming team and later a trained boxer. Years of discipline had embedded in her the instinct to fight.
Chenneour was born in North Yorkshire to the British Army officer Tim Randall and the teacher Alice Chenneour, though she was raised mainly in Oxfordshire, where her father worked as a programme officer at the Defence Academy in Shrivenham. She has a twin sister, Fleur — a former Team GB rhythmic gymnast turned model — and three brothers, all engineers. She and Fleur featured in ITV's 2015 documentary The Secret Life of Twins.
'We are very similar, obviously, and have had very similar experiences, but we are also completely different,' she says. 'I'm more bohemian. Our lives are taking different paths now. We're not that close.'
• Bridgerton actress fights off phone thief 'who threatened to stab her'
Her childhood was a whirl of training: ballet from three, gymnastics at eight, singing and synchronised swimming by ten. Was it a happy time? 'There are two answers to that,' she says. 'The one I'd give my therapist, and one I'd share publicly. Let's just say I've always enjoyed being busy, and I'm naturally very driven. I was also very isolated. It was hard to keep friends because I moved around so much. There was trauma I've had to work through.'
Training for synchronised swimming meant waking up every morning at 5am to practise before school and then again in the evening. At 15, Chenneour was selected to join the Great Britain artistic swimming team. She left school to focus on it full-time: training up to ten hours a day, six days a week. She studied for her GCSEs via remote learning and 'basically being autodidactic'. She was soon competing on the world stage as a soloist, member of the duet team and group. At the Europeans in 2014 she was the youngest competitor.
'I was really proud of everything I achieved,' she says, 'but it was also full-on. I didn't get to have a normal teenage life, which was hard at times.'
At 17 she was awarded an Olympic scholarship for Rio 2016. But just a few months before the Games she tore the cartilage in her left hip. Surgery was unavoidable. Her Olympic dream was over.
'When they told me I couldn't go I burst into tears,' she says. 'I was broken. I was exhausted. I had given my life to this sport.'
She describes 'killing a part of myself' with Team GB. 'I remember being shamed by coaching staff for my body shape, walk, posture and size,' she says. She is 5ft 9in. At her lightest — 7st — she was extremely underweight. She lost her period and was told by her female sports doctor to induce bleeding with a contraceptive pill. She complied.
After her injury she says she received no communication from British Swimming. 'I never heard a word after that. Nothing. I sent them an email saying, 'I'm really trying to get better.' They may have replied — but no condolences, no support. I felt totally discarded.'
She has since submitted written evidence to a British Swimming review of historical safeguarding cases and is separately pursuing a civil case against them. She is unable to discuss details while proceedings are under way.
Recovery was slow. She was in a wheelchair for a few weeks, then on crutches for a month, and took her A-levels at home while on pain medication. 'I did terribly, even though I'd been predicted A*s,' she says. 'Usually in those circumstances they give you your predicted grade. I didn't get that option.'
Rebuilding her identity after elite sport was hard. 'I don't think any amount of success is ever going to make me feel like I belong as much as I did then,' she says. 'So many athletes who retire struggle with that. The industry needs to be much better at supporting them.'What should that support look like? 'Government-backed schemes for funded athletes where they put money aside for their life after sport. They should provide life coaching too.'
Chenneour was fortunate to discover new passions. First, pistol shooting — she went on to make the England Pistol Talent squad — then boxing. During pistol training she met someone who coached actors in firearm use and soon began working as a stunt performer.
She played an armed soldier in The Old Guard starring Charlize Theron, and later doubled for Ella Purnell in the horror comedy The Scurry, motorcycling down a rocky mountain.
Alongside her stunt work, Chenneour studied. She enrolled in a sports science course at Oxford Brookes, for which she spent over 150 hours assisting on an NHS stroke ward. 'That was very humbling,' she says. 'Everyone should have to do something like that. It makes you understand how precious life is.'
After that, she studied physiotherapy at London South Bank, but soon struggled with the lack of creative outlet. A lecturer — whose sons attended Rada — encouraged her to consider acting. 'I'd never thought about becoming an actor,' she says. 'I wasn't financially supported and I didn't know people in the industry. I thought acting was for children who had rich parents.'
She withdrew from her degree and returned home. In 2021 she changed her surname, Randall, to her mother's — a way to formalise her shift from athlete to actress. 'I've always felt especially close to my mum anyway, so this was a nice way to honour that,' she says.
Months later she landed a role in Britannia, Jez Butterworth's fantasy drama. She played an acolyte opposite Sophie Okonedo and David Morrissey. It involved extensive nudity.
'I took the role because I thought it would be an incredible opportunity to learn how to navigate those sorts of scenes,' she says. Okonedo, she adds, was a great role model. 'In one scene I had to be topless. Sophie made sure I was covered up again when the cameras stopped rolling.'
There was also an intimacy co-ordinator on set. 'To not have one nowadays is not really on.'
Chenneour is unfazed by performing nude, largely because of her sporting background. 'I don't care what people think of my body because it is capable of amazing things as an athlete,' she says. Her mother's motto resonates: 'If you've got it, flaunt it — so long as you're safe.'
Last year she joined series three of Bridgerton after attending a workshop and getting herself in front of the casting director. 'All my success and everything I've ever achieved is down to me,' she says. 'Not who my parents are, which is so often the case in this industry.'
Beyond acting she has starred in music videos for the Brit-nominated Calum Scott and the British rapper Fredo, and modelled for Adidas, M&S and Lululemon. She's currently the face of campaigns for Trip drinks and Oral B. But fashion, she says, can be ruthless.
• How accurate is the sex in Bridgerton? From al fresco romps to body hair
She recalls being filmed without her consent while changing, and a luxury fashion house calling her 'fat' before leaving her forgotten — naked — in a fitting room. 'At the time I couldn't do anything about it,' she says. 'In modelling, unless you're a name, you're completely replaceable. I remember struggling a lot with body image after that.'
These days, she focuses on health over aesthetics: eating intuitively, avoiding refined sugar and only drinking alcohol on special occasions. She notes that social media influence increasingly trumps experience in modelling and acting. 'Even with a small role — if there's an actor who's trained, and then someone with two million followers, who's going to bring in more money?'
Chenneour is only just getting started. She was passed over for a role in the latest Mission: Impossible film but she's not deterred. She'd love to play a 'powerful, complex' Bond girl. She has plans beyond acting too: she publishes candid essays on her Substack, The Naked Pages, about navigating life as a young woman, and wants one day to write a book.
'Because of how I look and sound, people might assume I come from a rich family –– that everything's been handed to me,' she says. 'But it couldn't be further from the truth.
'If I'd had an easy life, maybe I wouldn't have the trauma I do, but I also wouldn't have grit. Everything I've achieved — even fighting the man who stole my phone — has come from that grit. And I wouldn't change that for anything in the world.'
Hair and make-up Amanda Clarke from Joy Goodman Agency Stylist Victoria Binns