Chloe Ayling, the British glamour model who was kidnapped in Italy, has signed up with a top celeb agency and reportedly wants to raise awareness of sex slavery after her kidnappers tried to sell her online while she was held captive.
The 20-year-old has dumped her old model agency and signed up with one that represents A-listers including Cher, Goldie Hawn and Claudia Schiffer, to name a few.
The agency, called Kruger Cowne, says on its website that it represents “some of the world’s most iconic musicians, bands, producers, comedians and entertainers”. It has been reported that the company were asked for “support and advice” from Chloe herself.
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Former representative Phil Green of SuperModel agency said in a statement: “The celebrity agent is basically saying, ‘I will look after all her affairs’ and she will not do modelling anymore.
“We had a photoshoot booked for today which we had to cancel.
“The clients are not very happy. It’s very, very frustrating after all we’ve been through.”
Chloe was released on Sunday after a terrifying ordeal which saw her being drugged and held hostage by a group of kidnappers who call themselves Black Death. She was held captive in a village in Turin for six days before the main suspect who has been arrested, Lukasz Herba, drove her to the British Embassy to release her.
Chloe thought she was going to a photoshoot in Milan, but it turned out that it was a set up and according to Italian police she was drugged with ketamine before being put in the boot of a car.
It is alleged that the kidnappers attempted to sell the model online for £230,000, and it has been reported that they demanded £50,000 upon Chloe’s release, though they ended up releasing her without having been given any money.
While Chloe was being held hostage witness have come forward to say they saw her shoe shopping with her kidnapper. Her lawyer Francesco Pesce told the Today show on Radio 4: “She was told that people were there watching her and ready to kill her if she tried anything.
“So she thought that the best idea was to go along with it and to be nice in a way to her captor because he told her that he wanted to release her somehow and sometime and she thought that the best thing to do was not to go in conflict with him.”
He continued: “So she abided to his request, ‘let’s go and buy groceries’ and ‘you need shoes, let’s go buy shoes’ and she didn’t try to flee.
“But I believe she was terrified at the moment and even if she could’ve asked for help she didn’t because she was subjugated to this person, or people as she was given to understand.”
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The model’s friend and former agent Carla Bellucci spoke out on This Morning yesterday as she tried to defend her. She told presenters Eamonn Holmes and Ruth Langsford: “She’s a beautiful girl, she’s lovely, she is just a little naive.
“Like everybody who goes into this industry, they want to be famous, I think she was willing to go all the way. She wants to be known.”
She said that Chloe dealt well with her horrifying situation as she said: “She is very strong about it all, I don’t know if that’s her way of handling it.”