Swedish UK TV star warned over phone hacking

Ulrika Jonsson, a Swedish UK TV personality, has claimed that she was warned by an executive of the now defunct British tabloid The News of the World to exert caution when leaving voicemail messages.

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The Swede said that she was given a warning over the phone hacking at the newspaper, according to a report in the UK Daily Telegraph daily on Friday.

"Someone told me not to leave voicemails," Jonsson said in an interview for broadcaster ITV's Tonight programme, to be broadcast this evening, the newspaper reported.

Ulrika Jonsson is a well-known face on British TV having developed a career since leaving her native Sweden in her early twenties.

Her love life has long been the subject of intense interest from the UK tabloids and her alleged relationship with former England football coach Sven-Göran Eriksson brought her back into the spotlight in the mid-2000s.

In her ITV interview, which forms part of a programme entitled "Rupert Murdoch, The Power and The Story", Jonsson talks of "feeling sick" when told by police that she was one of the celebrities involved in the phone hacking scandal.

''I felt immediately like my stomach was turning. I felt really scared - somebody's been watching or certainly somebody's been listening to my life," Jonsson said, according to The Daily Telegraph.

The News of the World was the Sunday sister paper of The Sun, the UK's best-selling newspaper, until it was closed on July 10th. It had a reputation for exposing the private lives of celebrities.

The developing phone hacking scandal, which ultimately led to the newspaper's closure, has led to a very public backlash in the UK and a broader discussion over press ethics.