Vanessa Feltz recalls being groped by Rolf Harris on live TV

Vanessa Feltz has recalled being groped by Rolf Harris on live TV - and how she cut to a commercial break in a desperate bid to save herself.

It has been revealed that the disgraced children's TV presenter and artist - convicted of indecent assault on four young girls in 2014 - has died aged 93, after being diagnosed with neck cancer.

Feltz, 61, discussed his death on her TalkTV show, revealing how he had put his hand up her dress during an interview on The Big Breakfast bed in 1996.

Read more: Rolf Harris: From beloved TV presenter to serial paedophile

The This Morning presenter revealed: "If you look at the picture, you will see that I’m wearing a full-length beaded gown. I was always in full evening dress in the morning on the bed.

"This was the whole idea of it and the noise was my dress being crunched between Rolf’s fingers as he started at my ankles and began to bring the dress further and further and further up my legs.

"And so I’m live on television and anybody who doesn't remember The Big Breakfast? Let me tell you what it was like. Jolly, lots of children watched it.

"Very positive, very, very innocent, very fun show, and I can feel my dress coming further and further and further and further up my thighs, past my knees, past my knees up to my thighs."

Feltz revealed she attempted to put a blue cushion between them as a barrier, but Harris "completely ignored it" and so she broke TV protocol and called an ad break ahead of time in an attempt to protect herself.

She revealed: "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.

"So I did what you're never allowed to do as a presenter, which I wouldn't be allowed to do on this show, which is thrown to a break when I want to, rather than waiting for the director to tell me a break’s coming up."

Harris was convicted in 2014 of 12 counts of indecent assault on four girls. One was overturned in 2017 but 11 still stand.

The Australian artist, musician and TV presenter was released on licence from HMP Stafford on May 19 2017, less than three years after his sentence began.

Read more: Viewers say new documentary about sex offender Rolf Harris is 'disturbing'

Maidenhead Town Hall registrars have confirmed Harris died of neck cancer and old age on 10 May 2023.

Feltz was a presenter on The Big Breakfast on Channel 4 between 1996 and 1998, interviewing celebrities on a bed.

Watch: Rolf Harris has died at the age of 93