Denise Van Outen puts on brave face after revenge porn ordeal

Denise Van Outen puts on a brave face as she is spotted after revealing that ex filmed her losing her virginity when she was 15 then threatened her with revenge porn – and how she caught her fiancé cheating

  • Denise, 47, revealed her revenge porn hell in her new book and in an interview
  • She said man who took her virginity when she was 15 had secretly videoed it
  • Denise said he tried to sell revenge porn video to red top tabloid newspaper

Denise Van Outen put on a brave face after revealing she was a victim of revenge porn aged just 15. 

The former EastEnders and Big Breakfast star, 47, tried to put her troubles behind her as she smiled leaving Ours Restaurant in Knightsbridge last night.

Earlier she had appeared ashen-faced as she was caught in torrential rain in north London.

Denise – who also recently split from fiancé Eddie over cheating – told last night how she had become a victim of revenge porn by an ex when she was underage.

The West End performer said the former boyfriend failed to sell the tape to a newspaper in the 1990s because a date on it showed she was below the legal age of sexual consent.

She said the man, referred to as ‘Mike’, was questioned by police who found he had recorded dozens of girls.

The case went to court, but he was not jailed. The judge warned him he would be sent to prison if any of the tapes’ contents ever surfaced.

Speaking this morning she said: ‘It was a hard thing to deal with because I was young and it resurfaced years later as soon as I was on television.

‘To be front page then, and going through a court case, was really quite difficult. I never properly addressed it.

‘I just buried it. It’s something that needed to be addressed because it has affected me.’

Denise van Outen attends the Dorothy Perkins Jess Wright SS22 edit launch event at Restaurant Ours last night

Denise Van Outen gets caught in torrential rain in North London yesterday before her chat 

Miss Van Outen, 47, (pictured aged 16) said the ex failed to sell the tape to a newspaper in the 1990s because a date on the video showed she was below the legal age of sexual consent

Revealing the nightmare in her new autobiography, Miss Van Outen said: ‘Revenge porn is talked about a lot these days, but it wasn’t a widespread term back then.

‘Looking back, Mike could be manipulative – cruel, even. We dated for over a year and in the end Mike was the boy I lost my virginity to.’

She said of the tape which emerged years later: ‘At the time, I felt shocked and mortified.

‘Mike had calculated the whole thing. He’d been waiting for me to make it big so he could peddle his grubby tape.’

The tape is understood to have been made in 1989, when Denise was just 15. 

The Essex-born Strictly Come Dancing star’s new book, A Bit Of Me: From Basildon To Broadway And Back, also tells how she split from her husband-to-be in January after she discovered he had been cheating.

She said she caught Eddie Boxshall, 47 – her boyfriend of seven years – flirting sexually with three women and described his behaviour as ‘disrespectful and devastatingly hurtful’.

They had frequently starred together on Channel 4’s Celebrity Gogglebox.

Pictured: The West End stage star Denise Van Outen has revealed she was a victim of revenge porn when a former boyfriend claimed he had a tape of her having sex aged just 15

Denise Van Outen found out Eddie Boxshall (pictured together on Gogglebox) her boyfriend of seven years – flirting sexually with three women and described his behaviour as ‘disrespectful’

Miss Van Outen said she found pictures and Instagram messages on Mr Boxshall’s iPad, saying: ‘Among photos was a screenshot…of a woman’s breasts – and they definitely weren’t mine!

‘Also, there was a flirty text exchange between Eddie and this woman, which, of course, set off alarm bells.’

The star, who had success both here and in the US in the musical Chicago, said the exchange happened in a week she had booked a Spanish holiday.

She added: ‘Eddie decided not to come to Spain because he didn’t feel well. While sympathetic, I was slightly confused about why he couldn’t chill with me beside the pool but could still manage to go to the pub.’

Next Miss Van Outen discovered selfies of Mr Boxshall with a woman in a bar on a day he had told her he was in London for business.

She realised by looking at the outline of the woman’s chest she was not the same one in the first photos. She also found messages which suggested ‘phone sex’ with a third woman called Tracy.

Miss Van Outen decided to contact Tracy and said: ‘They’d never met in person, but she said the conversations had become sexual in nature reasonably quickly – some of the stuff I found on the phone seemed to support that.’

She added: ‘To me, sexual chats and continued communication over a long period of time amount to cheating.

‘Especially when it’s done from a home I’d strived to build for us as a family. A home that Eddie found and I bought for us.

‘A home we’d only just moved into when it all started. It was disrespectful and devastatingly hurtful.’

Miss Van Outen confronted her fiance about the women, but he denied doing anything wrong and she told him to leave.

The star, who has an eight-year-old daughter with ex-husband Lee Mead, insisted: ‘The thing I battled with most was that it wasn’t just one person, one mistake or drunken night. This was something that had gone on for more than three years. I felt betrayed.’

She ‘cried her heart out’ to her mother, adding: ‘I was in pain and shock. I’d thought we had the perfect life.

‘Any relationship has to be built on trust and once that’s gone, there’s no way forward.

‘If I hadn’t found those pictures, I’d be planning a wedding right now. Instead, I’ve simply got to move on.’

Her new autobiography – which is out today – also touches on her life in the 1990s when she was part of the so-called ‘ladette’ phenomenon.

She told The Sun: ‘I never missed a single day at work — but I couldn’t do it now.’

‘I think talent and ability is important, but hard work, and a bit of luck along the way – a bit of everything is key.

‘But I’ve had a really good time, too, and I’m extremely grateful for the career I have had.

‘Actually, back in the Nineties, we had a reputation for being party girls but I would say it was probably wilder than people even know about. But myself, Zoe Ball, Sara Cox, the Spice Girls — we were all a strong group of women too.

‘It was a crazy time and a fun time. I have fond memories of that time – it was ­hedonistic, but it can’t last forever. Fortunately there were no phones with cameras and things so people used to just feel comfortable.

‘There was always a little circle of trust, so things never got out. But I don’t really do it now.

‘Actually I always joke that now I play golf — it’s like clubbing for the middle-aged.

‘I play with Ronan Keating, Mike Tindall, Brian McFadden, we all go out on the course and hit the 19th hole — but I couldn’t do what I used to do.

‘Sometimes I joke with Zoe Ball, ‘Do you even remember it back then’? I’m still partial to a kitchen disco at home with my mates.

‘I love ­dancing and having a good time, but it’s more in moderation – and I’m a very hands-on mum to my daughter.

‘But I never minded the partying reputation because I feel like we owned it, and we all still did our jobs properly. Even after the nights out, I never called in sick.’

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