Former Ready Steady Cook host Peter Everett charged with sexually touching 16-year-old boy
The Australian TV host was arrested at a home in Toukley on the NSW Central Coast on Saturday, NSW Police confirmed to news.com.au.
Officers from the Tuggerah Lakes Police District began investigating the alleged incident the day before Everett's arrest.
'Following extensive inquiries, police arrested a 66-year-old man at a home at Toukley,' a statement from NSW Police read.
'The man was taken to Wyong Police Station where he was charged with sexually touch another person without consent.'
Everett spent Saturday night behind bars ahead of his hearing at Parramatta Local Court on Sunday.
He pleaded not guilty to the charge.
His next court appearance is scheduled on September 3 at Wyong Local Court.
News.com.au has contacted Everett for comment.
Everett, who was granted bail during the hearing, reportedly denied the charge when he was approached outside court by Nine News.
Everett, whose TV career began in 1998 as an interior designer on Changing Rooms, has fallen on hard times in recent years, opening up in 2022 about selling his prized possessions to make ends meet.
Everett, who was best known for hosting the Channel 10 daytime cooking show Ready Steady Cook for five years until his abrupt axing in 2011, told 4BC Afternoons at the time he had been auctioning off his personal items just 'to survive'.
'There's been a lot of sales on my behalf. I'm selling anything … (I'm) not down to the garage sale yet, but I've been selling off a lot of things,' Everett candidly said.
'It really hasn't been an easy time. It hasn't. The entertainment industry, a lot of my friends far less fortunate than I have had it really, really bad.'
Host Rob McKnight then asked if Everett was struggling financially, 'You literally are at the point where you're selling stuff off?'
'I'm very open about that. You've got to survive somehow,' Everett answered.
'They're only possessions. Funnily enough, during this Covid time, sales were big. Auctions were huge. So it turned out that it was a good time to sell.
'It's kept me going, I can tell you. So thank you everyone for buying.'
Everett last appeared on Aussie screens on season 3 of The Celebrity Apprentice Australia in 2013.
In a wide-ranging interview with news.com.au in 2019, Everett said he was doing it 'a bit tough financially', and was finding it difficult to get his foot back in the door in showbiz.
'When you're not getting an income and you're just using what you've got, it's very dire, let me tell you,' he said.
'It worries me too. I don't have an agent. I'm not the best at seeking work. I don't want to annoy anyone I know in the industry and ask if there are any jobs going.
'I'm not doing very much. I do a little bit of charity here and there but not very much else at all. I feel I still have a lot to offer and I want to offer it.'
Despite resurrecting Ready Steady Cook 's ratings when he replaced Nick Stratford as host in 2006, Everett was brutally sacked before Christmas in 2010.
'I was at the airport about to leave on a trip and I got a phone call from Rory Callaghan (who was the chief executive officer of Southern Star Productions at the time) saying that I think I'm greater than the show,' Everett told us.
'I said [to him], 'I am a large part of the show, but I just want the best for the show'.
'I said, 'If my ego was so great and I was greedy I would have asked for a pay rise', which I hadn't had in three years, even with the great ratings we had.
'He said, 'While you're away, we're going to interview new people for the show'.'
Everett lived in Redfern for several years, having bought a home in the Sydney suburb in 2004. He later sold it for $1.4 million in 2012.
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