Hunted down by phone snatchers, targeted by car thieves and preyed upon by hackers – this is the Real Housewife of London who refuses to back down.
Amanda Cronin, a former model who founded her own skincare business, has become the latest star to fall victim to the hated phone thieves in the capital, where overall crime has soared by nearly a third over the past decade.
Just weeks prior, she had enjoyed a long lunch with Bridgerton actress Genevieve Chenneour, who has been attacked twice in London this year. Ms Chenneour was randomly attacked by Oxford Circus last week – just months after having to bravely defend herself from prolific thief Zacariah Boulares at Joe & the Juice, Kensington.
Ms Cronin, 57, was ‘shocked’ and ‘upset’ by Ms Chenneour’s double attack. But little did she know, she too would be preyed upon by London’s criminals just yard’s away from her three-storey mews house in Belgravia.
The Real Housewives of London star – also known as ‘the longest legs of Belgravia’ owing to her slender 37-inch pins – was walking home from a ‘beautiful’ evening out in nearby Sloane Square last month when her iPhone 15 was pinched by a hooded e-bike thug at around 9pm.
In an exclusive interview with the Daily Mail, Ms Cronin defended London as the city she has always loved since moving in the 90s – despite laying bare an astonishing crime wave in recent years.
She revealed how she also had a phone snatched while looking around universities with her daughter a few years ago, woke up to a hacker attempting to access her Coutts private banking account and has survived ‘multiple’ attempted car thefts.
‘I always describe London as a big, bad city,’ she says. ‘You do need to have your wits about you. There’s always been robbery and knife crime in all the time I’ve been here – but we’ve had pickpockets in London since Oliver Twist!’
Amanda Cronin (pictured), a former model known for having the ‘longest legs in Belgravia’, has become the latest star to fall victim to the hated phone thieves
(L-R) Real Housewives of London’s Juliet Mayhew, Amanda Cronin, Karen Loderick-Peace, Nessie Welschinger, Juliet Angus and Panthea Parker
The reality TV star enjoyed an idyllic childhood in the Hampshire countryside before mixing with the elite during her time in Monaco, France and Switzerland.
But for Ms Cronin, London will always be her home.
‘I’ve been in London since the early 90s, so I’m very, pro-London and very pro-UK,’ she says.
‘So it is upsetting to see that we maybe don’t have the resources that we need in the city, but with 10 million people, in London and Greater London, it’s a big job keeping people safe.’
She called for the authorities to take a New York-style approach by ‘not turning a blind eye’ to ‘lesser crime’ such as phone snatching.
‘We need to feel safe, we need the tourists to feel safe and we need the people that come and spend a lot of money to feel safe – and to want to be in London.
‘It would be nice if the police had more resources and I think that is a problem.’
Recalling the moment her phone was taken last month, she tells the Mail: ‘I’d had a really beautiful day. I went to have a drink with one of the other housewives from Real Housewives of Jersey, Dr. Tessa Hartmann, and I’d been to a beautiful girl’s lunch, so I was in such a lovely mood.
‘I’d had a lovely, girly day, and I was actually just walking home from the One Sloane hotel, where I had drinks with Tessa.
‘It’s quite close to my house, Sloane Square to Belgravia, so I thought I’d have a lovely stroll and do a little few steps.
‘I was just about to turn into my street, and this guy on a bike, they just come out of nowhere, completely silent, and off they go, just whisk your phone out of your hand.
‘I just looked into the distance and saw him riding off.
The Real Housewives of London star was walking home from a ‘beautiful’ evening out in nearby Sloane Square last month when her iPhone 15 was pinched
Just months prior, Ms Cronin had gone for lunch with Genevieve Chenneour, who had her phone robbed at Joe & the Juice in February. She was also attacked in London last week
‘Obviously there’s a great relief that I wasn’t hurt or pushed over. I had a Gucci bag, they didn’t want that. I even had a couple of rings on because I’d been out to a very glamorous event that day.’
She added: ‘It was upsetting. I got home and couldn’t make a phone call, I couldn’t get into the office phone, and then luckily I knew where my daughter was having dinner.
‘It was raining but I walked and got my daughter’s phone and called up Amex and my bank and stopped all my cards. That was my first thought. Obviously the phone is open at this point when they take it off you and you think they’ve got access to everything that’s in your phone.
‘My phone is my world, it’s my office, I do everything on it, I’m mobile-centric.’
Ms Cronin admits she stopped e-banking ‘a long time ago’, explaining: ‘I had my phone hacked a few years ago and I remember waking up on a Sunday morning after being to Wales on a TV shoot and someone was trying to face ID my Coutts app.
‘At that point I thought I’m not doing that.’
Opening up about her other run-ins with London’s thugs, she reveals: ‘I’ve had my car attempted robbery multiple times a year ago where I live. Multiple times they tried to take my car. It’s difficult to have these things, you think let’s not have these luxury items but I work extremely hard and I feel like I want a sense of freedom to be able to do what I want.
‘I’m a free spirit, so if I want to have something nice and reward myself for all of my hard work, then that’s what I’m going to continue to do.’
Ms Cronin refuses to back down to the thieves but concedes: ‘I don’t go around London with a watch anymore, we don’t wear our watches because we know so many people who have had watches stolen. The watch attacks can be very harmful.’
She has since taken the precaution of ordering a strap to keep her phone around her neck.
Ms Cronin has turned to Christianity in the last few years after the collapse of her marriage to her second husband, energy tycoon millionaire Mark Daeche, in 2019.
After landing a multi-million-pound divorce settlement, she went on to date former Wham! star Andrew Ridgeley but they spilt up in 2023.
She says that while others may have been left badly shaken up and violated by a criminal stealing their phone and having access to their personal life, she tries to take a different approach.
‘I’m a woman of faith. I live in faith, not in fear, so for me I don’t dwell on it,’ she explains.
‘I just got on and tried to order a new phone and get my setup back which took quite a few days and was stressful and upsetting and impacted on my business.’
In a rallying call to the people of Britain, Ms Cronin defiantly says: ‘There’s a lot going on in the UK, but we just need to stay strong and resilient and positive. We need to stick together and do whatever we can to be safe and feel safe and help our community.
‘That’s all we can do until things get better.’
Ms Cronin burst onto our screens in 2022 starring in Channel 4’s Millionairess and Me and this year starred on Real Housewives of London,
At 50, she also launched her skincare brand, Amanda Caroline, which sells high-end products such as £150 Haute Lift Serum and £130 Haute Lift Cream.
The brand counts TV presenter Lisa Snowdon and model Victoria Silvstedt among its loyal fans.
