Chris Tarrant: Being locked up by police in Kenya was terrifying
TV star Chris Tarrant has revealed his harrowing ordeal after he was held by armed police and thrown inside a Kenyan jail.
Chris and his crew were on their last day of filming a rail documentary when officers seized and threw them in a cell without any explanation.
He said they were then menaced by other lecherous captives saying what they were going to do to them later – and calling him “sweet cheeks”.
The former Who Wants To Be A Millionaire host said: “I was doing a piece to camera on the last day of filming on the banks of Lake Victoria.
“We were surrounded by men in camouflaged jackets holding these big guns, saying we didn’t have permission to film there. But we had all the documents showing we had been granted permission.”
Spies
He believes the police may have thought they were spies trying to film a new warship moored nearby.
Chris added: “They asked us to go back to the police station just to sign a piece of paper saying it was all a misunderstanding.
“But when we got there they showed us to this bit round the back and then these bars came down. They took our passports and our phones.
“There were these very large Kenyan men in the other cell leering and us and telling us the things they were going to do to us when we shared their cell that night. They kept calling me ‘ sweet cheeks’, which I didn’t like. It was bloody scary. Then at 4pm a policeman came and started handing back our passports, saying he was sorry about the misunderstanding. We ran out of the police station and raced to the airport.
“It was terrifying. It’s a lovely country but I am not sure I’ll ever go back.” The nerve- wracking experience happened at the end of Chris’s journey on a railway line built by the British across the West African country to the shores of Lake Victoria.
Nicknamed “the lunatic line”, the 766- mile trip includes a stop- off at a spot where 140 workers were killed by lions in 1898.
Chris eventually got home safely – but might have found himself in even hotter water if he had gone ahead with his next trip, filming for the same Channel 5 Extreme Railways series.
He added: “It would have taken us through Russia, Mongolia and China.
“We had the plane tickets, the visas, everything. Then news about coronavirus began to emerge and we decided to pull it at the last minute.
“Thank God we did. We would have ended up in the middle of China, maybe even in Wuhan, at the end of March.” Since then the 74- year- old – who is in the high- risk category after suffering a stroke six years ago – has been shielding with long- term partner Jane Bird at their Berkshire home.
But after a much less stressful year for the workaholic, he’s now feeling the pressure again – thanks to the rules which mean he can only invite two of his six children for Christmas.
Hard
Chris, who has seven grandchildren, says: “Our house normally heaves with people for three or four days at Christmas. Now I’m in a rather invidious situation, thank you Boris.
“I’ve got six kids, so I’ve now got to choose my two ‘ favourites’.
“One of them rang the other day. She said, ‘ Am I coming Daddy?’ I joked, ‘ No, you’re not in the top two, you’re not even in the top six’.
“But it’s something I’m going to have to do, it’s really hard.”