BBC’s Kidnapped: Why Was Chloe Ayling Blamed For Her Own Kidnap?

This article references sex trafficking.

Whether or not you recall the news headlines around model Chloe Ayling’s kidnapping from back in 2017, the true story behind her ordeal is chilling – and the BBC have made a TV series about it.

Starring Nadia Parkes as Chloe – and written by Killing Eve writer Georgia Lester – the series will recount the ordeal she went through after being kidnapped in Italy. And the way she was treated by the public and the media in the aftermath.

Here’s everything we know about BBC’s Kidnapped: The Chloe Ayling Story.

What is Kidnapped: The Chloe Ayling Story about?

According to a BBC synopsis, the documentary “is based on detailed research, extensive interviews, documented legal proceedings and Chloe’s own book Kidnapped. It will tell Chloe’s personal story in full for the first time, going behind the headlines to shine a light on the emotional truth.

“The series follows her terrifying kidnap, her bravery and resilience in captivity, and the subsequent court case that put her kidnappers in jail. Yet despite their convictions, Chloe faced headlines accusing her of faking her own kidnapping and found herself at the centre of a media storm”.

It will also, crucially, ask why Chloe was blamed for her kidnappers’ crimes. How do we relate to survivors of crime who make the front pages? And how does it feel to be an ordinary person, caught up in events so extraordinary that you aren’t believed?

Kidnapped: The Chloe Ayling Story cast

Alongside Nadia Parkes, Adrian Edmondso, Nigel Lindsay, Olive Gray, Eleonora Romandini (The White Lotus), Julian Swiezewski and Christine Tremarco will also join the cast.

Is Kidnapped: The Chloe Ayling Story based on a true story?

Yes, unfortunately, it is. Chloe has opened up in the past about her experience of being kidnapped after turning up for a modelling assignment in Milan. She told police that she’d been drugged, gagged, stuffed into a holdall, driven 120 miles and told she was to be auctioned as a sex slave on the dark web.

When Chloe returned home, she was interviewed by the media, and she was scrutinised for smiling during interviews, perhaps appearing to be unfazed by her ordeal. “I feared for my life, second by second, minute by minute, hour by hour,” she told reporters – but the way in which she appeared meant that reporters and audience members undermined and didn’t believe her story.

She was vilified by Piers Morgan in an interview, who demanded answers as to why she was seen out shopping with her alleged kidnapper, Lukasz Herba.

Lukasz had claimed in court that the entire situation had been planned by them both to get Chloe out of financial trouble. And yet, he was eventually convicted of kidnapping and extortion, and was described by the prosecutor as “a fantasist with narcissistic tendencies”.

Chloe’s story says so much about what the “perfect victim” looks like and what certain sections of society will do to deny instances of violence against women and attack victims who come forward.

In a 2018 interview with The Guardian, she opened up about why she felt she wasn’t believed. “I don’t think people believed me because I wasn’t in tears,” she said. “But I was happy, as you would be, seeing your family after a month when you thought you weren’t going to again. Also, because cameras are an everyday part of my life, I probably reacted differently from how most people would if they had been through the same thing.”

She added that stereotypes around models – that they “just want fame and publicity” – were also pervasive in her case. “I think if you’re a glamour model, you’re bound to be portrayed in that way. It’s just the stereotype, I guess.”