Ulrika Jonsson
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Eva Ulrika Jonsson (born 16 August 1967, in Stockholm) is a Swedish television presenter whose most famous work has been on British television. She is the granddaughter of famous Swedish opera-singer Folke Jonsson and speaks fluent Swedish, English, French & German.
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[edit] Childhood and Early Adulthood
Ulrika's parents divorced when she was eight years old. After the divorce, her mother went to live in Holland and Ulrika lived with her father for the remainder of her childhood. Jonsson moved to England at the age of 12 and attended Burnham Grammar School in Buckinghamshire, and then attended St Aldate's Secretarial college in Oxford.
[edit] Adulthood
After working as a secretary, she began her TV career on TV-am in 1989 where she worked as a weather forecaster. From 12 September 1989, she was also the weather forecaster for Swedish TV3, broadcasting from London. In 1992 she moved into mainstream presenting and played host to numerous shows including Gladiators, the Big Breakfast, The National Lottery - plus two major international broadcasts in 1998, the Eurovision Song Contest and Miss World. She also modelled for Berlei Lingerie during this period. She was a team captain on the surreal BBC TV quiz show Shooting Stars, where Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer coined for her the name Ulrikakakaka.
In 1990 she married TV cameraman Johnny Turnbull, but a few years later had an affair with Phil Piotrowsky, the Gladiators cameraman. She got back together with Turnbull, and they had a son, Cameron; however they divorced in 1995. She went on to have an affair with Gladiator Hunter (James Crossley).
She spent many days on tabloid front pages in 1998, after it was revealed she was the victim of domestic abuse at the hands of her then boyfriend, footballer Stan Collymore. Jonsson later took out an injunction preventing Collymore from releasing a sex tape involving the two, apparently made while they were on holiday in Cyprus - the video was later destroyed by Collymore.[1]
In 1999 she had a relationship with Markus Kempen, a German in the hotel and travel business. Kempen moved his business base to England, but the relationship ended in the January of that year.
In 2002 Jonsson had a short-lived relationship with England national football team manager Sven-Göran Eriksson. The event caused a tabloid frenzy as Eriksson had a long-term girlfriend - Nancy Dell'Olio - at the time. He later spurned Jonsson for a reunion with Dell'Olio for the 2002 World Cup.
After the media attention, she decided to return to Sweden. The Swedish television network, TV3 knew she was in the country, and offered her the role as the hostess the Miss Sweden beauty pageant. She declined the invitation.
In March 2003, Ulrika was a contestant on the BBC's Comic Relief does Fame Academy.
On 20 January 2007 Ulrika joined 10 other celebrities to take part in the ITV reality TV show Dancing On Ice where she was partnered with Pavel Aubrecht. Ulrika has had previous experience at skating in her native Sweden and was expected to go far in the event. Ulrika finished 9th after being beaten in the skate-off by Kay Burley.
The star's latest project was the confessional TV show, Ulrika: Am I A Sex Addict?, broadcast on Channel 4 on 20 March, 2007. The show charted Jonsson's personal journey to uncover the truth about sex addiction. In the show, Jonsson admitted that she herself was a sex addict.
[edit] Autobiography and John Leslie scandal
Later that year Jonsson wrote in her autobiography that an unnamed television presenter had sexually assaulted her earlier in her television career. Matthew Wright named (apparently accidentally) John Leslie as the alleged perpetrator on his television show The Wright Stuff, which was apparently an open secret in the UK entertainment industry. Jonsson made no public comment on Leslie's naming and did not co-operate with police over the matter. Police investigated Leslie but never charged him regarding the Jonsson case.
[edit] Mr Right
In 2002, Jonsson presented the Reality Television show, Mr Right, where an eligible bachelor (Lance Gerrard-Wright) is faced with choosing a girlfriend from a group of beautiful, intelligent women. However, the show ended in farce, when the eventual winner turned Lance down for being insincere. In an even more bizarre twist, Jonsson married Lance Gerrard-Wright on 9 August 2003. Jonsson split from Lance Gerrard-Wright in October 2005. [1]. She confirmed they were going through a divorce during the live taping of the 26 May 2006 edition of 8 Out of 10 Cats.
[edit] Children
Ulrika Jonsson has three children: a son, Cameron, by John Turnbull; and a daughter, Bo (after the child's grandfather, Bo Jonsson) by Markus Kempen; and another daughter, Martha, by Lance Gerrard-Wright.
[edit] References
- Honest, Jonsson's autobiography, ISBN 0-330-41174-8.
