David Walliams made beeline for young glamour model after becoming fascinated by her kidnap ordeal
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Disgraced comic David Walliams 'took a shine' to young glamour model Chloe Ayling after becoming fascinated by her kidnap ordeal.
He befriended the then 20-year-old from Surrey through social media after bombarding her Instagram account with 'likes' on her modelling photos – about six months after her traumatic abduction in 2017.
She had been kidnapped, drugged and held captive for six days, before being set free.
Walliams, who was 46 at the time and a household name as a judge on Britain's Got Talent, later organised a private meeting with Ms Ayling, sources claimed.
The pair met at his London home in early 2018, ahead of her making a trip to Switzerland to give her a break ahead of the kidnapping trial later that summer.
The comedian had been single since his marriage to model Lara Stone ended in 2015. Ms Ayling was also single after splitting from Conor Keyes, the father of her son.
A source told The Sun at the time: 'David orchestrated the meeting and arranged for her to visit his London home. He is intrigued by her story and has taken a shine to her. It's a case of waiting and seeing if their relationship grows from here.'
In July 2017, a tearful Ms Ayling gave a detailed account of being snatched and drugged by Polish national Lukasz Herba and his accomplice brother Michal, after she was lured to a fake fashion shoot in Milan.
Disgraced comic David Walliams 'took a shine' to young glamour model Chloe Ayling after becoming fascinated by her kidnap ordeal
Ms Ayling was bundled into a suitcase and driven to a remote farmhouse, before being dramatically set free after six days, having befriended her captor
She was bundled into a suitcase and driven to a remote farmhouse, before being dramatically set free after six days, having befriended her captor.
It was, she said, a deliberate survival tactic rather than genuine affection.
The kidnappers, acting for an organisation called the 'Black Death Group', had demanded her family pay a £230,000 ransom.
They insisted a failure to pay meant she would be sold as a sex slave and then fed to tigers.
Her story made headlines around the world. But despite the arrest and subsequent conviction of the Herba brothers, Ms Ayling was trolled on social media, accused of making up the kidnapping as a cynical publicity stunt.
At the time, the model spoke exclusively to The Mail on Sunday, hitting out against the vile internet trolls.
Speaking in August 2017, she said: 'If I was from a better-off family and did something more normal for a living, like a teacher, people would have believed me straight away.'
Lucasz Herba, a Polish national living in the UK, told a Milan court that he had been friends with Ms Ayling since 2015 and that she had agreed to the fake kidnap.
David Walliams attends a performance of 'Awful Auntie' at Richmond Theatre on May 09, 2024 in Richmond, England
He said she wanted money and fame before the kidnapping and that she even wrote her ransom letter and took ketamine to fool the police into thinking it was a real crime.
He was later sentenced to 16 years and nine months, later reduced on appeal to 12 years and one month. His brother Michal got 16 years, cut to five years and eight months.
Trial judge Ilio Mannucci Pacini later described claims that Ms Ayling had invented the kidnapping as 'incoherent and absurd'.
Ms Ayling went on to star in Celebrity Big Brother. She now charges up to £10,000 as an anti-human trafficking speaker.
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