Rylan Clark: Strictly It Takes Two presenter reveals he was mugged by a fox

Rylan Clark has revealed that he was mugged at a young age with his wallet being taken on his way home from a night out.

However, the London-born Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two presenter, 33, admitted that his assailant was not your average thief.

Rylan featured on Nick Grimshaw and Angela Hartnett’s weekly Waitrose podcast The Dish to divulge that his wallet was stolen by a fox when he was walking home in Romford, East London.

He told the former Radio 1 DJ and his Michelin-star chef co-host that the ordeal took place when he was 18.

He said: “I’ve got my wallet in one hand - my fake Louis [Vuitton], that I’d got down the market two days previous - and my phone in the other hand.

“There was a fox perched on this wall…obviously you don’t want to casually stroll past a fox. So, I did what anyone else would do, and you just stamp your foot and go ‘khh’ right? And you expect it to go, but this fox crawled down the wall and just slowly walked towards me and it’s just come closer, and then it looked like it was about to jump…I dropped my wallet.”

Rylan continued: “It grabbed my wallet in its mouth and went. So I’m standing there, two o’clock in the morning looking around for assistance and trying to think, did I just make that up?”

The next morning Rylan had to report his bank card as stolen to his bank and the police which led to an awkward conversation when describing his assailant.

He said: “I call the police, I’m like ‘hi I need to get a crime reference number for my bank cards as they’ve been stopped. I said that I was mugged and they were like, can you describe?’ So I’m like ginger, hairy…”

“So yeah, I got mugged by a fox. That’ll teach me for buying a fake Louis.”

The confession comes 10 years after Rylan first appeared as a contestant on X Factor.

Rylan has previously opened up about how he had “a tough ride” while competing on the ITV programme before being voted off by the judges in week eight.

He told The Guardian: “My job back then was to dress to stand out - to be the one that everyone talked about, whether it was good or bad. I got wise to that early on and I thought, ‘fine, we will roll with it because I’m only going to get one chance to do this.”

In the decade since his exit from X Factor, Rylan has gone on to feature on television shows such as Celebrity Gogglebox, Supermarket Sweep and This Morning as well as winning Celebrity Big Brother.

The East London presenter can be seen every weeknight on Strictly It Takes Two on BBC Two.