Vanessa Feltz says Mohamed Al Fayed came on 'hot and heavy' to her

Venessa Feltz has revealed that Mohammed Al-Fayed 'came on unbelievably hot and heavy' to her at a Bar Mitzvah in 2002 and invited her upstairs.

The former Harrods owner, who died last year, has been accused of sexually assaulting more than 20 women who worked at the department store. 

Ms Feltz, 62, said on Channel 5's Jeremy Vine Show on Friday that she remembered the 'menacing nature' of his behaviour towards her.

The broadcaster said he had 'made a bee line' for her and described his approach as 'insistent', adding that it was 'extremely difficult to extricate myself from it.' 

Ms Feltz previously opened up about how Rolf Harris groped her live on air.

Host Jeremy Vine, 59, recalled being offered Viagra by Al-Fayed after interviewing him on Radio 2.

He said the billionaire opened the palm of his hand and had a pill in it, saying: 'That, for you, is Viagra, you look like a man who needs it.' 

He added that the pill 'wasn't blue', speculating that perhaps it was a tic tac, and that it was 'a really weird joke'. 

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Their comments came as they discussed a BBC investigation into the allegations against Al-Fayed, which include claims from five women that he raped them.

Vanessa Feltz said: 'This doesn't compare in any way, but I just remember immediately, as soon as I heard there was this documentary, that I had been invited to a Bar Mitzvah in 2002, and for some reason my partner didn't go with me, I don't know why. 

'And Mohammed Al-Fayed was there, and he made a beeline for me, and he came on unbelievably hot and heavy. 

'And I looked into this, he was 73, I was 40. I had a partner, I was not interested in him in any way whatsoever. Not at all. 

'And he said to me that he had an apartment upstairs, and I think I was at Claridge's at the time. 

'And he said, 'come up, come up, come up, you. I want to show you the view, I want to show you the terrace, I want to show you the thing.' 

'And we were in the middle of a Bar Mitzvah, and I said, you know, no, thank you, absolutely not, but no thank you, you know I was trying to be polite, but I just remember the kind of menacing nature of it…'

She added that he was 'very emphatic' and that she 'had not flirted' with him.

Ms Feltz continued: 'I hadn't been sort of coquettish to him. I didn't fancy him. I wasn't interested in him.

'I didn't want to see his apartment. I was I was at a Bar Mitzvah. You don't just leave a Bar Mitzvah to go up to look at someone's apartment in the middle of a… the whole thing was just so irregular, that's why I remembered all these years later. 

'But what I mostly remember was the very insistent tone of it and the repetitive tone of it and the fact that I it was extremely difficult to sort of extricate myself from it.

'And when I heard about this, all these women, obviously that did not happen to me at all. 

'But I did think, gosh, if you were in a subordinate position, you were young, you worked for him, it would be very, very difficult.'

Mr Vine pointed out that at the time it had been just five years since Al-Fayed had lost his son Dodi Fayed in the car crash that also killed Princess Diana in Paris.

Ms Feltz explained that she had wanted to be polite towards Al-Fayed as he was 'an older man', and to let him down gently.

 She said: 'As he was an older man, you didn't want to be too you know, you don't want to 'no, God, no, I don't want to go up anywhere near you, don't be ridiculous!' You wanted to be at least polite.'

He noted that there was 'a lot of sympathy for him' and 'a bit of protection around him after that period'.

Presenter Carrie Grant said: 'There was a time, in telly and in business, powerful men could kind of put you into those positions where you felt really vulnerable, and you had to have some strength to pull your way out of it.'

22-year-old Reem Ibrahim added: 'I think it's the problem is men who are in positions of power, who could hold something against you, so they can take away an opportunity, they can, or the opposite, they can actually give you an opportunity.

'Those particular situations, men will often use those positions in order to try and lure young women.

'Yes, it does still happen, but definitely not to the same extent, I think, that it used to.'

Last year, Ms Feltz spoke out about how she was groped by Rolf Harris on live TV as his wife stood just feet away.

She described how the convicted sex attacker assaulted her during a 1996 interview on Channel 4's The Big Breakfast.

Harris, who died last year of neck cancer at the age of 93, pulled up her dress and tried to touch her knickers during a segment called 'On The Bed'.

She told TalkTV Drivetime how Harris had been 'crunching' her dress and pulling it 'further and further and further up my legs'.

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'And you can actually see in one of the pictures me, taking a blue cushion and putting it between us to try to make some space between me and him. And he completely ignored it,' she added.

The broadcaster said she could feel his hand going 'past my knees up to my thighs' while Harris's wife was standing in the same room as them.

She said: 'I didn't know what to do because I knew that I couldn't say, 'Get your hand off my leg' or 'What the hell do you think you're doing?' or 'Get off me' and I also couldn't jump off the bed because I was all mic-ed up and it's a live program. I didn't know what to do at all.

'I tried, as you can see, to put the cushion between, that was no good. I couldn't move any further away because you can see I would've fallen off the edge of the bed… his hand meanwhile was getting closer and closer and closer and closer and closer.

'And then it got to the edge of my pants, my knickers, or whatever. My lingerie, and I knew, that if I didn't do something immediately, it was going to be a proper full-on assault.'

The 61-year-old, who says she reviewed the incident when she was interviewed by police while officers were investigating Harris, said she was so concerned about what was happening that she told the crew to cut to a commercial break early.

She said: 'I didn't say a single word, he didn't say a single word, his wife didn't say a single word and then when we came back after I just got back on the bed and we carried on again.'