Kidnapped model Chloe Ayling has revealed she still faces accusations she fabricated her ordeal, ahead of a new BBC drama she hopes will finally satisfy her doubters.
Despite her kidnappers being jailed for 16 years, she said online trolls attacking her story “are still going strong” seven years after the incident.
“I feel like there was no acknowledgement of what I went through. I was never praised for my bravery in getting out of that situation. Instead, I always have to defend myself,” she said.
The new series, Kidnapped, follows the story of Chloe’s terrifying experience in Milan in 2017, where she travelled for a photo shoot.
Polish brothers Lukasz and Michal Herba lured her to Italy with the promise of modelling work, but she was drugged and kidnapped.
Kidnapped model Chloe Ayling says she still faces accusations from online trolls that she fabricated her ordeal
Despite her kidnappers being jailed for 16 years, she says her story is still under attack seven years after the incident.
Chloe was lured to Italy, to this mountain house in Borgial, near Turin, by Polish brothers Lukasz and Michal Herba and with the promise of work as a model.
After injecting her with ketamine, a horse tranquilizer, and stuffing her into a suitcase at a Milan photo studio, she was taken to a farm near Turin.
She was told she had been kidnapped by a group calling themselves the Black Plague and would be sold into sex slavery at an online auction, with a starting price of €300,000 (£265,000).
The series follows her terrifying kidnapping, her bravery in captivity, and the court case that put her captors behind bars.
“I know the truth and everyone who has investigated my story knows the truth,” said the glamour model.
“My friends get angrier than I do. My mother is a very emotional person… she has fought with almost everyone in her neighborhood for defending me.”
Chloe, who has since appeared on Celebrity Big Brother, was released after six days in captivity on a remote farm 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 tricked him into believing she would be his girlfriend if he let her go. Lukasz was later sentenced to 16 years in jail in Italy; his release is due next year.
His brother Michal was also sentenced to 16 years in prison, a sentence later reduced to five on appeal. He was released in 2022.
Kidnapped, written by Killing Eve screenwriter Georgia Lester, also stars Adrian Edmondson, Nigel Lindsay, Olive Gray and Eleonora Romandini. It will premiere on BBC Three on Wednesday at 9pm.