Britain’s Got Talent star Richard Jones came seriously close to death during a trip to Kabul, he has revealed.
The winner of the ITV talent show travelled to Afghanistan last month with a team of three other men because he wanted to entertain the troops.
However, the 27-year-old magician found himself in a very dangerous situation in the war-torn country.
“When we landed we were aware there was a big threat in the area. It was suspected that a group had been waiting to strike,” he explained.
“When someone big in the media or the public eye is there, the threat level is heightened and they would have loved to target us and the coalition troops. But on this occasion they realised if they tried to target our base, they probably wouldn’t get far and that if they killed people they probably wouldn’t kill that many.”
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He continued to the Sun Online: “So in the end they decided to go for mass casualties and decided to go for civilians. They stole an ambulance and packed it full of explosives. It went off just down the road from where we were at the time.
“It was awful, they basically targeted the busiest street they could find and essentially destroyed the whole street in this market.”
Richard, who serves as a Lance Corporal and an ambassador for the British Army, went on to admit that he and his team actually came under attack on a number of occasions whilst in the country.
However, they didn’t let it stop them from putting on six shows at the main base and also in more remote parts of Afghanistan.
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“We did shows for all the nations but most of the shows were multi nation. There were people from all over the world, Turkey, Australia, New Zealand – it what amazing,” he said.
Explaining that they took with them huge crates of sweets, chocolate and fizzy drinks, Richard added: “They had no idea we were coming so when we arrived in our helicopter with this huge crate of supplies it felt a bit like Christmas.
“With the shows we were taking their minds to a different place. We wanted to give them something to smile about. These guys are missing home and they are under attack on a weekly basis.”
Despite being in such danger, Richard hasn’t ruled out going back and doing more surprise shows.
“They’d never seen magic so their reaction was brilliant. Many of these people had lost loved ones and had lived their whole lives through some kind of conflict. Their resilience and positive attitude is inspiring.”
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