Model Chloe Ayling: I was lured to Italy, drugged and bundled into a suitcase – but online trolls still say I made up my kidnap ordeal
Kidnapped model Chloe Ayling has revealed she is still facing accusations she fabricated her ordeal, as she prepares for a new BBC drama she hopes will finally satisfy her doubters.
Although her kidnappers were sentenced to 16 years in prison, she says online trolls are still attacking her story, seven years after the incident.
I feel like there is no [acknowledgment] of what I’ve been through. I’ve never been praised for my courage to get out of that situation. Instead, I always have to defend myself,” she said.
The new series Kidnapped tells the story of Chloe’s ordeals in Milan in 2017, where she traveled for a photoshoot.
She was lured to Italy by Polish brothers Lukasz and Michal Herba with the promise of modelling work, but was drugged and kidnapped.
Kidnapped model Chloe Ayling says she still faces claims from online trolls that she fabricated her ordeal
Despite her kidnappers being jailed for 16 years, she says her story is still being attacked seven years after the incident
Chloe was lured to Italy by Polish brothers Lukasz and Michal Herba, to this mountain house in Borgial near Turin, with the promise of modelling work
After being injected with the horse tranquilizer ketamine at a photo studio in Milan and stuffed into a suitcase, she was taken to a farm near Turin.
She was told she had been kidnapped by a group calling themselves the Black Death and would be sold as a sex slave at an online auction, with a starting price of €300,000 (£265,000).
The series follows her terrifying kidnapping, her courage in captivity, and the trial that put her captors behind bars.
“I know the truth and anyone who has read my story knows the truth,” the glamour model said.
“My friends get more upset about it than I do. Mom is an emotional person… she’s gotten into trouble with almost everyone around her by defending me.”
Chloe, who has since appeared on Celebrity Big Brother, was released after six days in captivity at a remote farmhouse in northern Italy. She previously gave her first full account of the ordeal to The Mail on Sunday in 2017.
Lukasz Herba handed her over to the British consulate after she convinced him she would be his girlfriend if he let her go. Lukasz was later sentenced to 16 years in prison in Italy – he will be released next year.
His brother Michal was also sentenced to 16 years in prison, which was later reduced to five years on appeal. He was released in 2022.
Kidnapped, written by Killing Eve scribe Georgia Lester, also stars Adrian Edmondson, Nigel Lindsay, Olive Gray and Eleonora Romandini. The series airs on BBC Three at 9pm on Wednesdays.