Outline:
When Chloe Ayling was kidnapped, she dreamed of returning home to her normal life. But after miraculously surviving, the then-20-year-old quickly realised that this didn’t exist anymore, and instead, she faced a new battle — convincing people she wasn’t a liar.
‘I can’t believe I’m still talking about this eight years later,’ she tells Blog.
In the summer of 2017, the young glamour model thought she’d been hired for a photo shoot in Milan. Upon arriving, Chloe was injected with the tranquilliser ketamine by two men in balaclavas, before being driven 120 miles in a car boot to a remote farmhouse.
Although Chloe is mostly able to speak about what happened in a detached manner, it’s difficult for her to talk about when the kidnappers grabbed her from behind as she arrived at the faux shoot. ‘It takes me back to the feeling of not being able to breathe and that panic about suffocating,’ she explains.
Her captor, Lukasz Herba, whom she knew as MD, had been ‘hired by an international crime gang, Black Death’, she was told. They planned to sell her at a sex slave auction unless a €300,000 ransom was paid by her manager Phil Green, who had set up the shoot. It was money that he didn’t have.
Chloe was kept handcuffed to a set of drawers and slept on the floor for much of her six days in captivity. ‘I accepted that I was going to die, because there was nothing I could do,’ Chloe remembers, saying that she didn’t cry or scream. ‘The days dragged. I felt like I was constantly walking on eggshells, not wanting to say the wrong thing.’
A glimmer of hope came when she noticed how Lukasz looked at her. Thinking quickly, Chloe told him that if she were freed, they could be together. He started treating her differently and invited Chloe to sleep in his bed, but they did not have a sexual relationship.
On what would become her last day, Lukasz gave her pizza and fruit, and she ate for the first time after previously fearing he was going to poison her. He then took Chloe shopping for shoes as hers had been taken away, before driving her to the UK consulate in Milan, but not before giving her a list of conditions — she must end any investigation and pay the ransom herself.
‘Even though I was out, I didn’t feel safe,’ she says, explaining he’d convinced her Black Death could still be after her. She did speak to police, and it soon transpired that Lukasz, alongside his brother Michał Herba, who were working in computer programming and transport logistics in the UK, were the only people involved. There had been no international crime gang.
After around a month of investigating, Chloe, who was believed by Italian authorities, was allowed to fly back home, and she planned to keep quiet.
‘I was embarrassed by it. I didn’t want anyone to ever know, but that choice was taken away from me,’ she says, while reflecting on the moment that Italian authorities held a press conference the day before she landed back in the UK.
Not being believed
The public interest in Chloe’s ordeal was now feverish. Journalists waited outside her family home in Croydon, hoping for more insight.
Chloe made a statement outside her front door to a pack of photographers and reporters. ‘I feared for my life, second by second, minute by minute, hour by hour,’ she said of her ordeal. How dare she smile, wear shorts or pose for photographers, some raged. This wasn’t how a victim should behave.
Some struggled to accept aspects of the story, such as why she was holding hands with Lukasz while shopping, and how he freed her without police intervention. Quick to spot an opportunity, his lawyer declared the kidnapping was a publicity stunt to benefit Chloe’s career.
Chloe, now 28, is honest that she did make money out of her story, appearing on Celebrity Big Brother and releasing an autobiography. She also visited the TV studios of This Morning, Good Morning Britain, and Lorraine, where she calmly talked about what she’d been through. Her main goal was to present the facts to debunk theories. ‘That’s what I cared about from day one,’ she says.
‘It was a perfect combination of all the things that made it unbelievable,’ she admits. ‘My job as a glamour model is associated with publicity. How I look and dress, which was normal to me, didn’t go down well. Neither did my calm reactions.
‘It’s expected that when something bad happens, a person must be sad and crying. Cases are more complex than that. Mine certainly was,’ she adds.
‘When I spoke to the press outside my home, I had already been free for a month. I’d just been reunited with family, and I no longer had fear as I knew the Black Death wasn’t after me. It was a happy moment for me.’
Having to justify herself, surely that must have felt lonely and exhausting? ‘It was what it was. I just had to throw myself into it. I didn’t have a choice. I became numb to it,’ she replies matter-of-factly.
The impact on Chloe
In 2020, Lukasz was convicted of kidnapping and sentenced to 16 years and nine months in prison, and in 2021, Michał was given 16 years and eight months. The pair’s sentences have since been reduced to 12 years and 1 month, and 5 years and 8 months, respectively.
Despite the convictions, Chloe still feels the hangover of not being believed. A 2024 six-part drama, Kidnapped: The Chloe Ayling Story, helped rectify some lies, and soon, BBC will release a documentary, Chloe Ayling: My Unbelievable Kidnapping, in which she will recount the complex horror in her own words. The three-parter also features interviews with friends, UK and Italian investigators, and Phil.
‘After the conviction, I didn’t get closure as the lies overpowered the truth,’ Chloe explains.
‘The documentary is hopefully going to change public perception.’
Understanding herself
The backlash also led Chloe to analyse her own personality. She thought back to childhood when she would be told off for smiling while being disciplined. As she reached early adulthood, people would comment on her ‘monotone voice’ and ask if she’d had Botox, as ‘there were no facial expressions’.
She had always wondered if there was something ‘different’ about her, and then a kind email from a teacher landed in her inbox last autumn. The subject: ‘Possible undiagnosed autism’.
‘It was nice, not the typical criticism and negativity that I was used to. It said, “I think this is why people can’t relate to you, and you should seek a diagnosis”,’ recalls Chloe.
So, earlier this year, she followed the advice and received a diagnosis in March. It has helped her gain a greater understanding of her reaction, which, at times, has also confused Chloe herself.
‘I would get frustrated as I didn’t know why everyone expected me to be acting differently,’ she explains.
‘It was a relief to get the diagnosis. I’m able to give myself more grace and patience. All these things that I was trying to change, I don’t worry about anymore.’
Although she is keen to stress: ‘It’s not only someone with autism who can react as I did. There are so many reasons, such as delayed reactions or dissociating.’
She also learnt to appreciate parts of herself that she’d never been given the chance to before.
‘My calmness helped me so much in the kidnapping, but in the media, it backfired. I never got recognition for getting myself out. Experienced detectives couldn’t save me; I had to rely on myself. I was only 20 years old, but I outsmarted the kidnapper,’ she says.
Chloe, who still works as a model but likes to share her content on Instagram and OnlyFans for more control, hopes the documentary can change the narrative on how a victim of trauma should act or behave.
‘I want people not to judge what they don’t understand. A victim shouldn’t have to fit in your ideal box,’ she passionately states. Chloe adds with a smile: ‘And I like proving people wrong.’
Despite what she went through, Chloe never sought therapy as she didn’t see how ‘talking to a random person’ would help. But after spending hours being interviewed for the documentary, Chloe feels she’s had the closure needed.
‘I’m definitely the happiest I’ve ever been now,’ Chloe shares. ‘I could never have had a still, one-dimensional life. I need to take the ups and downs as it’s interesting.’
Chloe Ayling: My Unbelievable Kidnapping will be available to stream on BBC iPlayer on August 4 and live on BBC Three at 9pm.
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