Chloe Ayling reveals damaging toll of people not believing her terrifying kidnap plot
Model Chloe Ayling has revealed the toll of not being believed over her harrowing kidnap eight years ago. Addressing the criticism, Chloe said: "It never ends."
In 2017, Chloe suffered a week-long kidnapping ordeal after travelling to Milan, Italy for a photoshoot. However, when she arrived at the "studio", it was unusually "silent".
Chloe, who was 21 at the time, was drugged, kidnapped and driven 120 miles to a remote farmhouse near Turin, where she was held hostage by Lukasz Herba, a 30-year-old Polish computer programmer from Oldbury, West Midlands, who was later jailed. It comes after one Mirror writer claimed 'the new Bonnie Blue documentary may be the worst thing I've ever seen on Channel 4'.
Chloe revealed that a gang calling itself the Black Death Group demanded £270,000 or she would be sold as a sex slave on the dark web. But six days later she turned up at the British consulate in Milan to reveal her ordeal, despite no ransom demand being paid.
The model was eventually allowed to return home three weeks after her release. However, Chloe has since faced doubts about her story as she has been hit with claims of wanting fame or profit.
"It is always people who don't know the facts, they judge too quickly and jump in before knowing the full story," Chloe revealed of the backlash. "You can never get offended by it really because they don't know."
Speaking about reliving the ordeal for her new documentary while on Lorraine, Chloe said: "I thought it would be easy, I am really not good at talking about my feelings. I had to relive it again and I got emotional about things I hadn't before."
Revealing how the backlash affected her, she added: "I was constantly having to talk about his crazy decisions as if they were my own. It was my calmness that saved me."
"I had to get him on side to be able to get out," Chloe said as she explained how she came across as calm in initial interviews and CCTV footage. "I want to show a victim doesn't have to fit into a typical box to be believed."
She is now taking part in a BBC documentary, My Unbelievable Kidnapping, as she recalls the harrowing experience. It comes a year after the BBC released a drama series based on Chloe's kidnap.
When she returned home Chloe gave an interview to TV reporters outside her home. She said: 'I feared for my life, second by second, minute by minute, hour by hour."
Yet her story was still scrutinised as footage showed Chloe on CCTV footage in an Italian village, holding her kidnapper's hand. She ended up being grilled by Piers Morgan who told her: 'It's not insignificant to be going shopping with the alleged kidnapper and buying new shoes.
"If you're going to conduct media interviews where you're being paid money, and you're doing a book for thousands of pounds before there's even been a trial, I think we're perfectly entitled to ask you difficult questions.'
Chloe told him: 'It will all come out in the end." She was right, as Herba was convicted of kidnapping and extortion, and sentenced to 16 years and nine months in jail.
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