I’m A Celeb’s Martin Kemp has detailed a terrifying ordeal he endured, which he feared would be his last and left him “shaking like you’ve never seen before”
Martin Kemp has revealed the horrifying moment he thought he was going to die during a late-night ordeal in Rio de Janeiro.
The former Spandau Ballet star was filming the 1994 film Boca when he found himself “shaking like you’ve never seen before” as two gunmen burst into his vehicle.
Speaking on the Travel Secrets podcast, Martin recounted the harrowing experience in graphic detail, confessing: “I thought that was the end of my life.”
The musician, whose band Spandau Ballet achieved worldwide success in the 1980s with chart-toppers like “True” and “Gold”, explained how he and a crew member were departing the favela during the early hours.
Seated in the passenger seat beside the wardrobe assistant, he recalled how they had pulled up at traffic lights when two men suddenly emerged and approached their car, reports the Manchester Evening News.
The pair were wearing “rotten old jeans and torn t-shirts” with long, unkempt hair—a menacing appearance made worse by the empty streets surrounding them.
Kemp initially dismissed their presence, but the situation took a deadly turn within moments.
“The next minute they pull out these two giant magnum guns, the type that Dirty Harry would use,” he said. “One goes in through the driver’s window… and one comes in my window and he comes right up against my head and he’s screaming at me in Portuguese.”
Completely bewildered by what was unfolding, and certain his final moments had arrived, Kemp said his mind immediately flashed to two corpses he had witnessed earlier that week. “I think I’m next. What a strange way to go. I’m going to be shot in Rio,” he remembered, his “whole body was shaking” with fear as he tried to figure out his next move.
In a desperate bid for freedom, he pushed open the car door.
However, one of the men seized him, yanked him from the vehicle, and threw him face-down. “Hang on, I’ve not been shot yet, so it’s going quite well,” he recalled thinking.
Then, the situation took an unexpected turn. The man hoisted Kemp up, stared him down, and uttered: “Spandau Ballet.”
The armed stranger then produced a piece of paper and demanded an autograph. Kemp, still shaking uncontrollably, could barely write.
It later transpired that the men were undercover police officers trying to intimidate them—a fact neither Kemp nor his colleague knew at the time.
“In all my life, I have never been so scared,” he confessed. “I thought that was the end of my life. Thank God for Spandau Ballet.”
Martin is currently following in the footsteps of his son Roman by taking part in ITV’s I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here.
Source: Mirror
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