Model Chloe Ayling looks set to walk through the doors of the ‘Celebrity Big Brother’ house on Thursday night, but she may have the most peculiar claim to fame out of all this year’s contestants.
The 21-year-old was at the centre of a huge media story when she was kidnapped in 2017 and told she would be sold on the dark web as a slave for £250,000.
Chloe was lured to Milan to take part in what was a fake photoshoot by Polish national Łukasz Herba, who claimed to be a paid killer for a criminal group called Black Death.
She was drugged, forced into a suitcase and taken to a remote farmhouse in a small village near Turin, where Herba held her captive for six days. He was demanding £300,000 for her release.
It later emerged that during this time Herba took her shoe shopping, leading some to doubt her story. However, it transpired that she was acting under duress and told that if she tried to do anything, other people involved in the plot would get her.
She was eventually released from captivity, with Herba taking her back to Milan and leaving her at the British consulate.
Herba was sentenced to 17 years in prison in Italy in June.
He changed his story multiple times, but in his final version of events it is said he told police he had leukaemia and, desperate for money, came into contact with a group of Romanians in Birmingham, who offered him £500,000 to take part in the kidnapping.
After the sentencing, Chloe told ITV’s ‘This Morning’: “I just remember thinking I had to do everything he tells me to. That I had to pay this money, that I couldn’t tell the police anything, I didn’t know what to do.”
Chloe admitted that the ordeal she struggled to return to normal life: “For the first few months after I got back I was not sleeping very well. Still paranoid that something would happen at night - so I would stay up all night while my mum slept, and then take it in turns because I was frightened.
“But gradually I’ve started to travel more and come out of my shell a bit more and talking about it helps me.”
Her rumoured ‘Celebrity Big Brother’ appearance comes after she told of how she wanted to move on from the ordeal.
The mum-of-one, who is said to have signed a £100,000 deal to appear on the show, previously told the Daily Star: “I am desperate to put this ordeal behind me. I refuse to be labeled as simply a kidnapped model or a victim forever.”
It is thought Chloe will be joined in the house by former TOWIE star Dan Osborne, celebrity psychic Sally Morgan and actress Roxanne Pallet.
However, the most surprising rumour of who could be joining the house is Stormy Daniels, who claims to have been silenced about her affair with Donald Trump - although she is doing her best to deny she’s signed up.
‘Celebrity Big Brother’ launches tonight at 9pm on Channel 5.