Brian Cox’s famous wife who punched burglar so hard he screamed and ran away

Brian Cox's wife Gia Milinovich has become a familiar face due to her successful TV career - and she has a sporting background that's developed a powerful right hook

Away from his jaw-dropping career as a successful musician and popstar, TV presenter and physicist Brian Cox enjoys a quiet life with his family and wife.

Gia Milinovich, the wife of Brian, is highly recognised on television for reasons other than being the wife of a famous celebrity popstar.

Gia, 52, a presenter a writer, was born in Minnesota and presented Channel 4 ’s Demolition Day as well as appearing on Sky Sports, Nickelodeon and BBC Radio 5 Live.

Despite having a career in television, it was Brian who took the forefront of the fame - and led Gia to describe herself as an "invisible wife".

In 2010, she wrote in The Guardian: "When we first met, I was the expensively groomed television professional, working on mostly science and technology shows, and he was the newly appointed physics academic with a student's wardrobe and a single bed."

"A few years ago, I started to notice that the more Brian appeared on TV, the less interesting I became to other people."

Brian's wife Gia confronted an intruder in their family home in London

Image:

( Getty Images)

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The couple, who have a son together, have been married since 2003 and once experienced a terrifying incident in their London home.

Away from her TV roles, Gia is trained in boxing - a highly competitive sport that came of good use on a Thursday night in May 2014.

At the time of the incident, she had been training in the sport for three years - and it's safe to same that it came of good use.

Gia's motherly instincts quickly stepped in when she spotted a burglar in her 17-year-old son's room at their home.

After a night partying with some friends, she was in a deep sleep before being awoken at around 5am by her startled cat.

Once she heard the sounds of footstep, Gia decided to investigate, and she found a "strange man" standing there.

"My first thought - is there anyone else with him? - disappeared immediately," she said.

"The one thing I know about self-defence rather than boxing is that you need to fight for your life. There’s no being nice.

"There’s no ‘let’s just see what happens here’. You must approach it with a ‘kill or be killed’ attitude.

"I had no idea if that man was armed, if he would try and attack me, if he would try and rape me, if he would try and kill me. Life or death stuff. I wasn’t going to wait to find out."

As a feisty Gia charged into the room and landed a right hook a she let out "a deep, loud, roaring, dominant boom" type of scream.

"It wasn’t a technically brilliant punch, my second and third knuckles were bruised," she continued.

"I didn’t punch to score points from judges - I didn’t punch and snap back ready to punch again to continue the fight until the end of the round.

"I threw everything into it like a heavyweight does," she added.

"He made a 'well, that really wasn’t very nice at all' sound, pushed past me, ran down the stairs with me chasing after him continuing to shout and out the front door of the house."

Gia called the police after the ordeal

Image:

( Alan Davidson/REX/Shutterstock)

After the shocking ordeal, Gia called the police - who managed to match the intruder's finger prints and identify the suspect through CCTV footage.

It is believed the man, who was not named, was charged and pleaded guilty before being sentenced to eight months in prison.

"Apparently, I was the talk of the police station for a few days after the burglary," Gia said.

"The police officer who was dealing with my case said that he had never had another case where someone punched a burglar.

"Would I do it again? I’ve no idea. Would I recommend you do it? Not really, unless you’ve been trained even a bit, your punch isn’t going to have much of an effect which would open you up to being attacked.

She wrote in a post on her blog: "Would I recommend you start taking self-defence training? Yes.

"I didn’t start boxing training for that reason at all, but I would highly recommend it alongside a much more practical street self-defence course that teaches you awareness and how to handle various different situations."

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