Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Jealous girl glassed me for dancing with Amir
A BRITISH woman claims she was glassed by a jealous air hostess during a night out with love split boxer Amir Khan in Dubai.
Make-up artist Bia Hannides, 22, was partying with the star in an exclusive club there on Sunday night when she says the Lebanese woman attacked her.
Bia was rushed to hospital with a gaping wound over her eye, her designer white dress covered in her blood.
She was there for 12 hours having stitches and doctors have told her she will be permanently scarred.
At one point she even feared she would lose her sight, and says the trauma has changed her life.
Bia, from Southampton, said: “I could have lost my eye and now my life is ruined. I will never be able to go into a club again and I’m probably going to need surgery when I get home.”
But she claimed Khan offered no help after the attack because he was allegedly worried about attracting “bad press”.
The next day the boxer, 30, sent Bia a message saying: “I get punched in the face for a living and still get the best girls. Same for you.
“You will get the best guys regardless, scar or no scar.”
In another message he said, apparently talking about the attacker: “Babe she wasn’t with us. I’m sorry. How are you feeling?”
Bia, on holiday in Dubai with mum Denise, 53, said she was introduced to Khan on Sunday – two days after his very public split from his wife of four years, 26-year-old
Faryal Makhdoom.
THRILLED
They swapped numbers and she was thrilled when the star invited her to join him at the exclusive Billionaire Mansion club that night.
He met her outside the venue at around 1am on Monday, and she and her mum joined him, his brother Haroon and beauty adviser Gulbahor Becknazar in a roped-off VIP area.
Pictures taken on the night show Bia with both Amir and his brother.
She said: “We were all just having a really, really good night and it was just a small group of us. We were all with Amir and he was keeping it very close knit.
“If he lost sight of me he would always try and find me or pull my hand. He was looking after us. We were all dancing and happy and having a really good night.
“He had his hands around my waist and was flirting a bit – but in a really friendly way.”
But she said the night then turned sour after a Lebanese air hostess tried to join the group.
“I had this beautiful white dress on, we were all having a good time and maybe because Amir wasn’t giving her the time of day, she was jealous.
“Amir’s brother was saying to her, ‘What are you doing in this circle in our
He had his hands around my waist and he was flirting a bit BIA HANNIDES ON HER NIGHT OUT WITH KHAN
area’ and it must have upset her. It was really crowded and you were accidentally brushing into everyone around you – that’s just how it is.
“She said to me, ‘You’re pushing into one of my friends’ and I told her I hadn’t even touched her friend.
“Next thing she went to hit me, but I was with it, so I grabbed her wrist – and with her other hand she glassed me straight in the face.”
Bia was helped into an ambulance outside by security staff.
She needed five stitches in a gash above her right eye.
Doctors were unable to stitch a second cut on her eyelid because of the delicate nature of the skin.
“It was absolutely horrible,” she said. “Amir and his brother said they couldn’t come with us because it would be bad press. I understand, but I would have expected him to find out what happened to me when he left. “I think all he could think about was how it would look in the papers.”
Bia said police later ordered the attacker to pay a fine of 1,000 dirham – around £200. Khan’s Dubai trip is one he will not forget in a hurry. He had flown out to the Middle East to celebrate wife Faryal’s 26th birthday.
But last Friday the ex-world lightwelterweight champion announced on Twitter they were getting divorced after four years of marriage.
Labelling Faryal a “gold digger”, he accused her of having an affair with the British boxer and world heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua.
Joshua laughed off the suggestion, posting a video clip of the Shaggy song It Wasn’t Me. Faryal unleashed a series of accusations against her husband, before later deleting them.
One message said: “I’m not the one who has been in the papers every month with my pants down. Cheater!”
On Monday, after returning to his hotel after his night out, Amir claimed his estranged wife is stopping him seeing their daughter Lamaisah, three.
He also apologised to his fans after being pictured out with Gulbahor Becknazar – who has known the boxer as a friend for two years and angrily denied speculation she had anything to do with his split from Faryal.
In a Snapchat video clip Khan said: “I just want to apologise for my behaviour yesterday. I know it’s something that you guys don’t want to see.
“But it was what my ex-wife’s drawn me to do. Faryal’s drawn me. Her mum’s drawn me. They’ve taken my daughter away from me. She’s in New York. Faryal’s threatening for me to never see my daughter again.
“I don’t want to live like this. I only went out yesterday because I‘m so stressed out with all that drama that’s gone on and I wanted to let myself go.
“I went out with a group of friends. I don’t drink alcohol. Just don’t use it against me. I did nothing wrong yesterday. I was just so frustrated with everything that’s gone on.”
He was still wearing his wedding ring when he returned to the UK on Tuesday. But yesterday it was absent when he posted a photo of a gold Rolex watch with the words: “My new gift from Dubai. Treated myself.”
His representatives did not reply to requests for a comment yesterday.