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n this episode of Secrets of the Underworld, Neil sits down with Michael Chandler, former bodyguard to some of the biggest names in Hollywood, music, and the underworld. Michael shares what it’s really like protecting high-profile clients, from A-list celebrities to powerful figures with dangerous enemies. He reveals wild stories from behind the velvet ropes—VIP parties, close calls, and the ever-present threat of violence. They dive into the skills it takes to survive in the world of personal protection and the moments that tested him the most. This is an inside look at a life lived in the shadows, keeping others safe.
Approche Production.
Welcome to Secrets of the Underworld. I am Neil the muscle.
Comments and in this episode I speak with Michael Chandlin Form my bodyguard to the stars.
They work on this sum that you're just security and security are thick, so you're the do as I say. We've got some clients. We send profiles out to them all the time, and they always reject people that are board. She's not celebrity as such, but she's high ranking individual and it's a lot of that stuff kind of happened around celebrities. So if people skin thenkers in the twist with the fame, if this carver travels a fast up jump out of it. Honestly, it was so bad.
Well we'll talk about you growing up and all like that, but while growing up, was that a goal of yours to join the military?
I think at one point, yeah, it probably was. There were no wars going on. Obviously is probably the first goal for at one point, but nothing major. I was born after you know, Falkland Islands, the Fallland War. I don't know if it was the military. That word was a joint. I wanted to do a job that was multifunctioning. I wanted to. At one point, I wanted to be a paramedic, and I always wanted to travel, even as a kid. I remember watching Home Alone two and looking at New York like it was this wonderland, do you know what I mean? Growing up in North London, the idea of traveling to these places was just like it was. It was a goal. It was always a dream to travel for work, and luckily I still get to do that now. But I don't know if the military per se was a career. I mean, it's military police. Definitely not, by the way, I'm definitely not. When I found out that that was regiment's joined to do the close protection training, I was like, oh, I don't know, because I didn't want to be a policeman. Nong story short from my great career. One of my oldest sons. At one point I wanted to do a policeman, and I encourage them to do it. But yeah, for me growing up, policemen, No army, possibly, but yeah, all of the aspects that involve sort of a military career, I think probably. Yeah.
But when you're saying military police and then you've got the normal police, is it totally different?
Not really? And there are some different aspects to it. I mean, if someone's committed an offense, you will call up their OC or CEO of the commanding officer or officer and commander or someone who ranks above them, call them up and there are reports in the police station and you'll arrest them, which is obviously very different to being a severe You just who would do that, you know what I mean. In the military, they really have a choice. The reoffending rate is very very low in the military. Fact, the Glasshouse the military prison, one of them in the UK. I think it is the only prison in the world with zero reoffending rate because it's proper harsh. Really, yes, it's snails. It's a tough place.
What was your first job?
My first job when I left I left school when I was fifteen and I was a mechanic. I did a mechanics apprenticeship where I lived our next door in abury here in the garage, and I went to work for him and it was it was that was a mistake. That was a waste of three years of my life, to be honest with you, it was one of those where my prayers were, like, you need a career, you need a trade. Yeah, yeah, And I was like, all right, you know I was earning really bad money for such a long time, and yeah, it's just a waste complete ways after that, I went into construction. I trippled my money pretty much overnight. In fact, probably more the triple it actually in terms of daily rate and all the rest of it. I was a scaffolder for a long time, about six seven years.
Wow.
All the while though, I was talking about, you know, going into the military, military and doing a close protection or you've got to go back a few years, right, imagine saying to people, especially in the construction game in the UK, like I want to be a bodyguard. It's just it's laughing, it is. I was just laughed out of the room.
You know.
It was people taking the piss at me all the time. You know, you know what the training involves, catching bullets in your teeth and all this sort of stuff.
See, when I was living in England and before I came out to Australia, all I ever wanted to do was play football, and it was only when I came over here then things changed and I never ever thought I'd be you know, doing security, your bodyguard and all like that. But I went down that path because I think it was because my father owned all the all these nightclubs in Liverpool that made me just do a total U turn and thought, well, you know what I've grown I've grown up with this. I'm gonna I'm going to try my way in this left soccer, went back to boxing, and then it all went down that way. But it's right what you say, Like, you're not going to go in England and say I want to be a bodyguard. They wanted to do close protection. They'd fucking laugh at you.
Yeah, I mean they did. They did for a long time. Everyone minute maliciously. But it is a funny thing. You're going to laugh on you if you come from that sort of background, people are going to take the piss. I mean, it's just one of those things. It's is what it is. Yeah, you know, career wise, I think even even in the sort of realm of security, my my career kind of went one way compared to the way I thought it might go. So my career went in a slightly different direction than what I had in mind, But it turned out it worked in my favor actually, which we could talk about later. But it was mainly I think it was a byproduct of the recession. Actually in two thousand and seven, thousand and eight, I had to kind of do some things I didn't really want to do but needed the money within the security industry, you know. But as it, like I said, as it turned out as a skill set that I had acquired as a result of that that really helped boost my close protection element of my career.
When you said you were in the military police and you said you kept it quiet, is that because of the fact that the people around you you didn't want them to know, or is that just the fact that you just didn't like it, You just want you didn't want anyone to know what you did for a living.
No, I grew up a counselor state. It sounds strange now because now I've work with government agencies around the world, you know, I've trained police forces in certain countries and stuff. So I grew up in a counselor state and working for or talking to the police just wasn't a thing. It's hot because I grew up in a family of gangsters or travelers or anything like that. It was just because, like I said, there was a petty crime going on left right and center, and you know, the idea of you joining the police. I don't think people would have hated you for it, to be honest, I think it was more I couldn't deal with the sort of nonsense. I mean, the bodyguard thing was one to then say I'm going to go in the military, police or any any form of police force. For a period of time, I think in my mind perhaps I was less confident than I don't know. I just felt it best to keep it to myself. That's the main reason. It was just because the environment I grew up in, not not you know, I love where I grew up and I'm very proud of where I came from. Yeah, I just think it was a decision based on that.
So what what actually Okay, so while you end up military police, what led you to go down and want to do close personal protection? What was it about that that wanted you that was your next career move.
Well, I think it was that it was overy around really, like I said, as when I was a kid, the idea of traveling, the medical stuff that was always interested in. I was a bit of a strange kid. I remember when I was about thirteen fourteen, I bought about a book on pharmaceuticals and just read it because I just wanted to get better understanding of the pharmaceuticals. There's always been strange like that. So I thought, maybe I could have medical career or you know, you wouldn't where I come from. You would never be a doctor. So may be a paramedic if you're lucky. So I thought about that, and I thought about all of the sort of contributing factors that I would enjoy in a career that were different to what was going on around me, you know, trades or whatever. When I looked at close protection, but I didn't know what the phrase meant at the time, probably didn't exist. Actually, probably bodyguarded. I looked at it and I thought, you know what, that actually puts together quite a nice series of elements that I would enjoy it, like I said, in a career. And then did my research. Obviously having a military background is always beneficial of courses, and so then I did my research, and it was the military police that did the closet protection, and that that's the way around. It happened. That why I joined them, and that's why I did it that way around. And again I think it's more. Why did I want to be a bodyguard or do close protection. I think it's just because it involved so many interesting elements and what I didn't know at the time, and I wish I knew more. But as it turns out, even more interesting elements were things like intelligence acquisition and all that kind of stuff that really kind of you know, got juices.
Do most of the personal protection bodyguards come from the military, because over here not many come from the military, Like, there are a few, but not most of them. You just mostly there were security and they've done a course to be a bodyguard and now that's how they've done it.
But I've seen in the UK a lot of them about ex military.
Yeah, it seems like a rite of passage actually in the UK. Probably in the US as well. Actually, I'm surprised to hear about Australia. I've never really off it was like that in Australia, I don't know, but.
There's not many. There's not many that come from the military.
So in the UK, we've got our own training academy right and we're opening one up in New South Wales this year. Our companies already incorporated there, but we need a special license to train about eighty to ninety percent of our applicants, because you have to apply for our training programs, they're all ex military, like eighty to ninety percent minimum ex military or ex police by the way, right, So if they're ex civilian police, then that to some extent, that's actually better than being ex military because they haven't got that kind of militarized sort of mindset of I must do this, I must do and they're not used to the younger ones especially, they're not used to integrating in sort of normal society if they joined the army at sixteen or whatever. You know. They walk down the road, they look a certain way, they carry themselves a certain way, no beard, you know, hand signals and the rest of it, and they just stand up like clients don't actually want that they might have done in the past, they definitely don't now. The other reason I think it happens is because when our clients do select who they want to work with, if it's long term role, they will select someone with military experience older. Usually they prefer military experience, a background in close protection for some period of time. I mean, look, I'll be honest with you, I mean I'll spend a lot of time in Australia, but I was under the impression that was the sort of the thing, especially across the sort of the first world like places you know, x Weld, Commonwealth countries, if you like. It's definitely it's definitely true in America, there's no doubt about that. Canada is probably the same South Africa. I mean, I think it has to be, to be honest with you, and yeah, I cautiously suggest it's the same in a lot of countries, and I'm surprised here it's not. In Australia.
A lot of I know, a lot of the bodyguards that I know, I've just come from being a normal security guard. They've done the course, the X whatever MMA fights is their X boxes and they just get the license and then they start doing their bodyguard with So.
What surprised me also is, and when we were looking into the legalities of doing the training over in New South Wales, is that the the timeline for doing a close protection courses is seven days, and in the UK it was twelve days, and then they've upped it and now it's twenty one days. Luckily for us, our course has always been twenty one days, which was above the minimum. But now, as it transpires, we were sort of in the good books anyway because it was twenty one days anyway. But yeah, it's I think there's there's a training program being outlined across Australia federally. That's a kind of I think they're trying to make it a compulsory twelve fourteen day minimum and the criteria is much higher. But yeah, it's it's I don't know, I don't know what. I can't put my finger on why that is. Actually I'm trying to think quickly why that might be. But I'm surprised. You'd think a lot of the lads and the women leaving the military would sort of see that as an opportunity, a career route.
Well, don't get me.
Wrong, there are few, but from what I've seen that it's a lot of security who've had their license for a few years. Yeah, they just want to get in an easy way instead of being on the doors of night clubs.
Are like that. They want to be a bodyguard, now, you know what I mean.
And that's it's just a course, you know, as I said, it's just a week's course or you know, an online course, and then you've got your license for a body guard.
Yes, crazy, that's going to change to but yeah, as it stands now, that's is what it is.
Have you got any experience in like martial arts or anything like that or was it just a military that you've been in or.
Yeah, no, that was the other thing. Actually, that was one of the other contributed factors. I started doing martial arts when I was six, I was really young. Yeah, I started doing karate one day a week, and then it progressed into pretty much three or four days a week. It became really came mad. I started to win trophies at a really young age. I was pretty good at it, and I've got the way up until I was about sort of thirteen, and you know, sort of became more interested in girls and all the rest of it. I went to all boys scol as well. So the last time I wanted was another sort of male dominating environment to be in. So and I did get back into it until I was about it's about nineteen, and the old sense that I used to do PRCT with as a kid, I met up with him and he said, I'm doing this new thing now and it's called mixed martial arts it just before it was popular, And tell you, as far as I'm aware, and I love that, I started to really get into that and it was such a good discipline, very different from cry obviously it involved different elements. Yes, I had the martial arts. The funny thing is, though a lot of people kind of misinterpret this, and quite rightly so, because I would have assumed, and I did assume that my karate background would be beneficial. But to be honest with you, I mean, unless you're writing your CV and someone just sees that as a bonus, it's not something that's really taken into account at all.
What do you think What do you think is taken into account the most?
It is it, like you said before, military background, where it's also a look.
Yeah. To be honestly, I was going to say, a lot of our clients look at the person as I mean, look at the physical of them. I don't know why that is. I suppose just on one side they want them to look the part. Some of them, a lot of them, they want them to look load profiles, so they would rather someone relatively slim, more athletic build. We've got some clients we send profiles out to them all the time, and they always reject people that are boord. You just don't know everyone's the individual, but some of them are right, you know. So we used to work a lot of our work came from not Russia per se, but a lot of Russian clients lived in London. I mean there were a lot, you know, a lot of people from the archical structure and and just wealthy Russians in general. Before the invasion, we were allowed to work with them obviously, and that was where a lot of my income came from. And when the war kicked off, our sort of workload just took a deep dive and like you know, placing people with them. They were very specific. They wanted people that looked more like models the bodyguards, and I think for them to some extent, not all of them, because you can't tar the whole nation of von brush. A lot of them wanted someone to look the part and as long as they're a bit of military experience that was fine. Others wanted you know, ninja. So it just it just depends on the person.
But did any of your close personal guards carry weapons on or it was non weapons?
In the UK, you can't carry any formal weapons. So what we're trying to do with our expansion plans. We've got offices in countries but for other services, not necessarily close protection. We opened our office up in Sydney last year. What we're trying to do, and the reason we chose Australia, by the way, is because our cultures are pretty much identical. Right. There's I mean, you would know more than anyone, but there's a lot that's the same. And in fact, I would argue, I think any two cultures actually in the world, you would put UK and Australia together and say that these are almost identical. So we thought it would probably be easiest in terms of culture to kind of say, right, we're copying and pasting what we've got from the UK to New South Wales to begin with, because we don't have to worry about the necessity to carry weapons necessarily, so I think, and I know there's some sort of disparity with that, but what we're trying to achieve, I think, is a security organization that kind of deals with a certain type of clientele that does not require any weapons carrying. There's something that terrifies me about putting the weapon into someone's hand and who you know? You just you just never know. What I've learned in my career as a director company director is you just never know people. Uh, I don't think it will ever work in hostile environments. So and answer to your question, no, as it stands, and I think as it will continue to stand, they don't carry weapons. Even so, we're hoping to carry on our expansion with close protection services in Canada where we have three or three offices in Canada already providing different services, but across Canada we're going to try and sort of mitigate the necessity for people to carry weapons.
What what but what would what would happen if you had the clientele and it's and it's needed to have a weapon because of the high profile or how dangerous this person is or wanted. Do you have to get in touch with the police or forces for that to come.
Yeah, there's just it's not going to happen. No, no, no, no, one like nos of licensed. There's a close protection for our officer otherwise that they're not going to carry a weapon legally. So for example, they said, look, we're coming from place X and there's a threat on our heads and all the rest of it, and if we do a threat assessment it transpires to be really serious and possibly imminente, then we would contact the police for support anyway or just I mean, if if they said no, no police involvement, I want people to carry guns, They're asking us to break the law. We're not going to do that. So we would probably know fight the police and say look, we need your assistance. If they say no, as in the client says no, not the police. If the client says no police involvement, then we just want to do it. If it's a country where the concealment of firearms is permitted, then as it stands now, we would kind of we're left to do an assessment on it. I think we'd have to do a done assessment as to whether or not it's something we want to deal with. I personally, if I had an input, I would prefer that we didn't carry firearms, none of our men or women carrying the weapon. You just don't know. I mean, look at I don't like doing this actually, but you know, did you see that incident where Trump got shot and there was that poor woman. You know, things like that, it can really bring your reputation down and she's with the Secret Service. Their reputation is going anywhere. But yeah, I just no, not not for me. As we've had so we've had like people go from the UK to the United States and we've sent one of our people over with them obviously unarmed. Uh the client specified that they're not armed. They were from the Middleast. So yeah, obviously we have to analyze it case by case, but no, my preference is zero.
We'll get we'll get into it. We'll get into that.
Like how you started off and bodyguarden, So who was your first client that you ever looked after?
Do you know what?
I asked a lot of question about it, but I've never been asked that, you know. I wish I knew the answer. No, I actually can't remember. Do you know? What happens? To be honest with you, so a lot. It's a funny thing with close protection in the entertainment because I started off really in the enterainment sector, right. I used to work on film premiers and after towards them at the end of my career, I've done about three D film premiers. And what tends to happen is when you're there or before the operation actually commences, you know that they locked out. They used to call it lockdown. They probably don't call that any more for his reasons. But when there's to lockdown lesser square or whatever wherever it was, you know, two or likewise, then they would they would sometimes delegate us to a specific members of talent when in reality, and this is another hangover from the recession, I think what they should have done the studios should just pay for close protection, and they did sometimes but always so what would happened is you get the last minute, you're told, oh, actually you need to go and work with Michael Kaine or wherever it is. I'll be honest with you know, I can't remember that the first bust, the first the first celebrity I ever really worked with, or I don't know. One of the first people I worked with on throughout the whole day was an actor from a Marria called Matthew and I was with I was with serving for a few days, and me and my colleague ended up working with this guy's manager. So every time the manager's clients came over, and they were predominantly young male actors, we would work with them, and shortly after that we the company. I founded signed a contract with Universal Music Group, which speaks music label in the world, and they would they would just send whoever over. You just never knew it was going to be. And obviously with entertainment, it's like a couple of days notice if that, or sometimes saying they noticed when someone's gone wrong. Yeah, yeah, I wish I'm gonna have to look into that.
I've put you on the spot now, it's right, it's probably good.
Well, it's good good interviews because I just don't know the answer.
Do you know what when you have to pick up celebrities and all like that, high profile people, would you would your job start from the airport when they land or when would you start kind of interacting with them?
Yeah? Do you know what? It really depends on the manager. So there are two key people involved with a celebrity, right. The celebrity of them themselves have no real involvement of their own security. I mean it's very rare. So their security is always paid for by the film studio or the record label or wherever it is. Working for the two key people that you need to contend with. It's not even that, it's not even what the two I just mentioned. It's the manager who's the actual individual manager of that talent, or a PR person, which is usually honestly a nightmare because the PR person well I don't to say too much, but they're usually quite difficult to deal with, to be fair, they kind of take over. They work on the assumpthing that you're just security and security are thick, so you're listen to me, do as I say, right, all of that kind of stuff. So it would depend yeah, I mean logically speaking, you would get them from the airport right your arrivals, straight into the vehicle, straight to the hotel. The chances were though the would get to the hotel and sleep and so they Again there was this money save and exercise going on all the time, where can we save money? Oh, do we need them to pick them up from the airport? And it just depended on the s pretty honestly didn't need the security. There would the security raise the profile of the individual and so all the little things that people don't really think about. But it could be from the hotel of the first day of the press tour or from the airport. As you said, when something's gone wrong.
What is the anything that ever gone wrong?
There was there was one incident. We were me and my colleague, the same same manager that I mentioned before. He was a talent manager. We were working for him and he had three or four of his clients and we had five, I think we had four security that we had arranged ourselves. And they had a VIP area in one of the clubs in Mayfair. They knew the owner, and there was these four actors, all of their friends. Some of those were famous, and there were some other friends of friends who were also pretty famous allegedly. So they were in their VIP area and then you know, this guy come in with some band that had been on X Factor or something, and he got the He got really annoyed because he wasn't allowed into the VIP area. He knew the owner and all that kind of stuff, just tried to barge its way in. I mean, honestly, that was probably as race as had gotten. We just had to put him down and that was the end of it. It lasted about thirty seconds. All the Americans laughed it, yeah, come on, honestly, I mean, perhaps luckily for me nothing. But interestingly, what I said earlier on in the interview was about how my other sort of skill set that I had accrued early on in my career became beneficial. Was because when I first started, I just threw my CV out to everyone, Like I said, it was not a good time economically speaking, anywhere in the world. And I put it out through it to a few companies. One company got back to him and they said, look, the training program that you did very much largely based on intelligence acquisition, which is true, which is unusual for a closed protection course back then. I responded back yes, and they said, well, come in from an interview. And I went in and they basically said, look, we're dealing with so many surveillance operations now. We need new operatives, good operatives London based and I was based pretty much in central London. I grew up in Islington and I could get anywhere within twenty minutes, half hour if I needed to. I said, I don't want to do surveillance. It's not my thing. I've done the training. I didn't enjoy it. It seems slight to me, you know what I mean. It's I don't it's not natural for me to sort of covertly follow someone. But they said to me, well, and again they told me the daily rate, which is pretty much Tripple was being paid. I said, oh, anything for a friend. So yeah, So I started doing surveillance, and I started doing a lot of it. Honestly, I started to make serious money doing it. And obviously after a period of TI I'm talking about a couple of years, people started to kind of know that that's what I'm also doing. The people you work with in the entertainment protection side of things and all of that, sort of those cohort people, they got to know that I was doing surveillance and all the intelligence stuff as well. And there was a very famous actor that came over to the UK and he'd been followed back from one of the studios. You know, the one of the biggest green screens in the world is in London, and we're just outside of London Pinewood Studios where they filmed Pirates of the Caribbean. A lot of the big Hollywood movies are shot actually in London, not in Hollywood for that reason. And he was coming back from this studio, this director and someone had noticed had been followed anyway. So the security company for the film premiere all the rest of it, they said, look, we've got security with him. But honestly, we don't really know what to do. I was like, why are you contacting me? And they said, because we've heard that you've done a lot with counter intelligence, intelligence, acquisition, all the rest of it. So I said, well yeah, but I was surprised because I was still the young kids, you know, I was the young, skinny kid that just kept himself quiet at the corner. And they said, look, honestly, hold our hands up. We don't know what to do. Any advice you can give us? So I said, all right. So I sat down with them, put together, like just started doing drawings, just saying what if we do this, do that, and then we kept our imagery there and counter observations and they were like, this is amazing. We're going to tell you know, whoever's responsible for the money side of things. They agreed to it entirely and that was it. After that, I was kind of sort of the person who to go to, the go to person, as it were, for not all celebrities, because that would be ridiculous thing to say, but people at least who are contracting this specific security company when things went wrong or they just didn't really know how to deal with incidents that won you know, part of the normal sec celebrity stuff. You know. So if it's perhaps and crowd control, great, but if it's something like a bit iffy, they were like, okay, contacts as to see if Michael can sort of help out. I know it sounds arrogant, it does acting in myself talking to sound like a bit of an asshole, but that was that was for me at least a kind of sort of a route into the sort of more serious stuff. And then after that, yeah, I moved into sort of Russian markets. There was always more money there.
Who'd you reckon was would you say females or males are the wis to look after?
It depends, honestly, it depends.
Would you have a female if there was a female client, No, no.
Not celebrities there. So if if they come, if it's a female, come from the Middle East, she's going to have a female, there's no, there's no question. So now the company I work for now that we work with a lot of companies in the Middle East. You know, I live in the Middle East. We work for families from Yue Qatar and elsewhere, and they know they have their females with them. You can't have male bodyguards and females. That's just not going to happen. So, yeah, they do. But celebrities that's less common honestly, which I mean, I don't really know why other than the fact that it's going to be there's a little bit of argiebargie, and I don't notice the decision. The decision lies with the record labels, honestly, and a lot of the decision makers are women themselves. So it's not like I don't think it's a sexiest thing unless it is. I don't know, it's faster women if they're being sexiest to their gender. I don't know.
You know, were you ever contracted to a client for a long period of time, like personally or was it mostly.
Just in celebrity?
Yeah?
No, not really. There was one client. I mean there were one or two, maybe three or four actually that when they came I was with them, but not not they were based in London for any long period of time. The truth is that the budget don't the budget doesn't allow for it. Celebrities own good money, well, actors and actresses and you know, music talent, most of them are good money. But they're not going to spend the money that would be required for full time security themselves. So the security they get, like I said, it's funded by the repro lebs and the studios. It's it's very red. There's any two or three celebrities, Well, there's probably a few more. I'm sure there's a few more that actually had their own full time guy as it were. I won't mention it. They are, but you know, some of them live abroad, so probably less costly than it would be in the UK. There's one very famous. I mean, these the two men I'm referencing, one's America that lives in he lives in Europe somewhere not in the UK, and the other one is America. Lives in America still. But he used to have his own guy. But he would tell the studios when he wanted him, so the studio just said okay, fine, like they didn't have a choice, right, So he used to have the same person. So in that sense, it's very rare for someone to be with someone permanently. Maybe very very frequently, but not not not often the case I mean, like I said, go back to the recession, and they hangover from that. They were they wouldn't even pay for us to travel to like Paris and stuff. I mean, we had we had this woman, a female singer. Again, she is a she still is very famous. She when she came over, we worked with her. She wasn't a night but actually was the manager. Her manager was a nightmare. We were put to go to Paris and on the train, not not flying, on the train, and to be fair, the train is more convenient. But they decided last minute not to do it because they found a cheaper option, which honestly, I think it was like two hundred plant. They just like they saved and it's like, so sat on a train hundred pound.
They was the same that they just wanted to save money for two hundred pounds.
Yeah, And I always wonder who is it doing that? Is it the manager or is it the record label? Who is I don't know. Do they get do the record label fork out the budget for security first and the managers kind of you know, sort of shaves off the top. I don't know, but yeah, that does that does happen a lot, you know. And by the way, this was on the Eurostide. This first class isn't amazing, it's she's going to be harassed the whole journey, do you know what I mean?
So, yeah, I don't know as a as a as a client ever wanted to take you, like I know you say that they don't, they don't. But has it ever a client said to you, why don't you come over to the to the US, Why don't you come back over and work for me over there?
Have you ever been offered that?
Yeah? Yeah, I've been offered it, but it was it was an unrealistic proposal because he wasn't going to pay for it. There was one There was one guy the same age as me, but we got on really really well. He was we weren't from the same background now or you know, he's from America and from the UK, and he grew up in a middle class background. I didn't he and he but he was just wild and I knew how to handle wild people because you know, he was like one of my mates, you know, in the sense that he was always always on the he was always boozy, and he's always after getting single. It's always after his managers like you need to look after you need to start with him all night. It's all right. And yeah, I mean he was just a lunatic. But I knew how to handle him, and we just got on really where you are and he said to me, look, you need to come and move over, move over to to the US. And I said, well, I don't mind. You know, it's a dream as a as a kid to move to work in the US. But like I say, it was an unrealistic proposer because he was going to pay for it. He wasn't and his manager certainly wasn't because his manager won't even pay for it, you know what I mean. So, yeah, it's a nice thing to think about, but I think that is very, very rare. I have a colleague actually who he's a contributor actually to one of my books of books, five books, nearly nearly finished, and he's one of the contributors to it. Like I asked five or six people to just write a few paragraphs about what they've done, and he's one of them. And he worked for the same company as me, and he was just in the right place, right time and during London Fashion Week, and someone very very famous in the fashion industry was protected by him and he just liked him and said, right, you're kind of work for me. Done it. But he owned a big fashion brand. He could afford to. It's different with actors and I don't say actors and actually can't afford it. It's just like it's a huge challenge and I mean it's massive, it's huge. So yeah, I've got off it it once, but it was just it was paralytic. I don't think it.
But you have you have worked for some like like the three big names that I've seen that you work for, like Paul McCartney, You've Furman, Bradley Cooper, you know what.
So yeah, you have for some big names.
Do you know what? When a few articles they did about me on about my work, I was really fortunate enough by a news outlet that did an article about me and they all, well they and others seem to pick up on that Bradley Cooper photograph, right, And I don't even know where they got that from. I honestly, I don't know where it came from. That was just me opening a car door a film premiere. I spoke to him brief Yet I spoke to him briefly. I didn't actually work with him, right, I was just what happened was you get different roles right in a film premiere, like you are the doors the cinema open door or helped seeing the premiere. Yeah, it was just I was on the car doors.
That day, so you were just at the right time, at the right place.
And then there was this sort of screenshot and yeah it was and it was. Oh I spoke to him and I met him, but like it wasn't. We didn't work together as such. You know, I wish I did, because he seems like quite cool fella. But Uma Firman, I did work. Um Firman. I was actually working with a jewelry brand and she was going to an event and the jury brand weren't letting her go to an event without the jewelry being secured. Yeah, and so again another example where celebrity themselves doesn't actually pay for it. So she was probably paid by the jewelry brand a good sum of money, more than I was, I'd imagine, And she went to the event, and I looked after the jewelry, not necessarily her. I don't know how. We had this conversation jokingly amongst us some of the other fellas working with the other actors and extras or whatever, and I was like, what if something happens right, what we're going to? What are we going to do like hold the pin them down and like rip the diamonds off their neck or whatever. I mean, yeah, she was really, really really nice.
Did she have a security guy herself?
Like, because you you were there to look after a jewelry, but did she have someone else there to look after her?
Or were you there with her for both?
No? I was. I was there. Primary. My principle was the jury the jewlry that she had on. From what I remember, because I used to work with a lot of the jewelry brands, we used to covert like escort. We used to take the jewery in back just like back, like bags like this on the on the London Underground and things to foto shoots there worth millions, millions of pounds like no one knew obviously it was pretty covert. But on that occasion though, I was working for the jewelry brand and there were no bones made about it. They said to me, you're working for the jewelry, not her. It's a difficult situation, they put in because instinctively you protect the individual, don't you. I mean, if you've done that for a job in it and the jewelry is on a person, you can't not work with the person you know, and invariably you're going to talk to them and make conversation all the rest of it. And she, like I said, she was really nice. The people she was surrounded by. It it wasn't her fault because they came with the event. I can't say, I'm just trying to tread carefully. But they again, that was another situation where your stupid security, don't you keep your mouth shut? It was they one of them said to me, stop talking, you don't know her. I was fuck. Yeah, It's a lot of that stuff kind of happened around celebrities. You know, people just get the nickers in the twist with the fame that someone had and sort of didn't know how to manage it. So rather than sort of manage themselves, they would kind of, you know, verbally attack you to kind of make themselves seen or filming board. That happened a lot, and that used to really want me. That's one of the reasons I left the security at the celebrity circuit. The PR usually outsourced firms. They yeah, they were always like, just you put I mean, I mean, if I could, like, you know, show you what it looks like it's like they're just going like you're a child. Shut up. I remember one there was one guy right, Like I said, I worked on three hundred film premiers by the time I finished working in that sort of area, and the there was one guy that was out of all of the film premiers, he was probably there for about sixty percent of them. So frequently you would talk to some of the men and women that were working for the pr and you know, seeing if they need anything, and you know, just general conversation. Working for long periods of time. By the way, film premiers would last typically four to five hours, but there was before and after parties, so the after party has gone for hours, and they were also there, so you knew each other, right. And there was this one guy that I was doing the close protection for someone I can't remember it was. And I said to my excuse me. I don't remember his name right, which probably didn't help, probably bruised his ego. But I said, excuse me, and he went to me, just walked away from me, like like he was scared. I didn't know what to do. And he went to excuse me, sorry, don't talk to me.
I don't know you.
I was like what.
To give it.
For years. It was just the most bizarre thing. I thought, you know what, this isn't a case of him not knowing me. This is a sort of power play of him sort of I'm more important to you, do not talk to me. It was a typical sort of middle class working class I'm here, you're there. You know, you do your job. Actually that's the other thing. They won't let you do your job because you didn't know how to do it, you know, security. You were just sort of there to put up and shut up and sort of looked the part. I think. I don't know what they expected anything that went wrong though, and it didn't be in my case. They had to ship themselves and they don't have liked to you know, they wouldn't want to do of course. But yeah, that honestly that that I'm not joking. I actually wrote a piece in my book that I had to take out afterwards because it's near completion and I was going through it and there are bits in there that are highlighted in yellow, which I've written after I've had a drink, I tend to write much more fluid. Know why, I don't know what it is. I've wake up the next house, haveing a few drinks. I'm like, I'll read it, and I'm like, oh, it looks like Shakespeare.
What kind of clients? Hell, do you prefer to work after?
I always enjoy working with the Russians. I don't know, in no way do I support or approve what's happened. I'm not going to get to a political thing. But they were always a culture that they're like us. You know, They've got a similar sense of humor to us, believe it or not. And they're just straight talkers some of them, some of them not. Orc You can't tell them all with one brush. Some of they are a bit more paranoid than others, and that required that's quite difficult to navigate because you don't know where they be serious when they're not. But they were always just straight talkers. What you saw is what you get, and that was it. But Middle Eastern clients are really the Middle Eastern people are like, honestly, I'm not just so next to live here. They are generally the nicest sort of people you'll come across, I think, especially where I live in the UE, and they are so nice. That was my mind. Actually, sometimes how kind and nice. They are a bit like you're you going to do some horrible now, you know. But so I always enjoyed working with them sometimes and then talent. I didn't mind as long as I wasn't being sort of held to account by someone who thought that I was a complete idiot. Really, now I think about it, Historically, my favorite clients were the group of Americans I've referenced a couple of times now that one manager I don't want to say his name is Eric, the manager and his clients. He was always such a nice such a nice fellow, and all of these clients were always really nice as well, and he introduced us to other people. He tried to help us acquire more work through people he knew. He introduced us to our celebrities directly, and he looked after us properly, you know. He made sure that we ate in the nicest restaurants with them, maybe on the table when it was appropriate to do that, whatever, but he made sure that we were well looked after, and I enjoyed that. It was a good time. That was a good sort of period of my life.
Yeah, but has anyone ever attempted you to.
To go on the world because you've got to You've got a big profile. So surely surely Sean would have tried to tempted.
You to go.
You know, even the Russians.
Like the Russians comes a whole different bunch of threats, you know, kidnaped threats and whatnot. But what I was probably quite lucky, right because one there are two elements I think where I've had people come to be saying you can do this, and I've always said I've always had to come up with an excuse because I don't want to be like, no, I'm too good now you know what I mean, And I'm not. It's just because I have to stay on the right side of the law, and now I'm in a situation where it could just never happen. I've worked with the Australian government and believe me, they've been in my phone like remotely. You know, you can just tell. But before all of that, going back to the start, when I did my close protection course, I was just probably very lucky. When listen, the first thing, the second thing I'm going to tell you is don't do anything, don't work with anyone that's involved or allied, cry anything like that. I'm all okay, because I think few people have sort of say, similar background to me, and they said, look, he said, the thing is, despite what you think, you know, you will never win, especially in your position. The other people might you know, people you're working with, they might get away with stuff because you're just vulnerable all the time, and you can have a great career on the right side of the law. And then obviously joined the Royal Military Please it kind of encouraged me to sort of stick on that right side. And then the military police kind of actually introduced a new interest in the law to me. So I did a law degree quite recently, only graduated like two and a half years ago, I think. So I did a full time law degree and all that kind of stuff. And you know, even before and during that time, I worked with the Australian government, the Guarneian government. So when the Ghana government I worked with, it's called the BNI. It's like their versions of FBI counterintelligence units around the world. So you get to a point like it's even if I decided I was going to I would be called very quickly, like even now my phone's over there. I mean, I'm not paranoid, I'm not conspiratorial at all. But if someone wants to find foot out about me, like they probably could, it's I'm such an open book now and I think it helps with my company's marketing.
What do you reckon makes a good bodyguard?
Good communication skills, appearance. I think your appearance counts for a lot, honestly, because it's the first impression. You don't get a second chance to make the first impression. The ability to think dynamically. You know, you have to deal with scenarios left, right, and center. It's how you handle them. Communication skills, and then there's interpersonal skills. They're closely linked but are very different. Communication is just about you know, how you talk and the way you did have a message. Into into personal is more about having rapport with a specific individual and then having a different approach with the person who's totally different to that one. So I think all of those things. I think the key thing though, is honestly good like common sense, and that's what we struggle to find. Like, we get a lot of people come on our training programs and after twenty one days, it just transpires that they're not willing to be flexible. They've drawn a vision in their mind what body God is going to be about like nine to five. It's definitely not you've got to what you you know, if you're in a relationships, probably not a great art. It's not career honestly, because you know, relationships suffer, they really really do. Romantic relationships, social friendships, everything. If you've got kids, you know, it's hard willingness to commit and to you know, achieve something within a quicker timeframe as possible. Having all of the above sort of attributes, but really utilizing your common sense at all times, Yeah, because you'd you'd be gobsmacked, like how how many people are like rigid, very very intelligent, high IQ. But just like a basic scenario, they're like, we can't they can't get the head around it. So you know what I mean. We had one example where we had a guy he rocked up to a job and he couldn't get his head around the fact that the client weren't paying for his parking. We're like, don't worry about that, just get into the hotel whatever and we'll sort the parking that date. But no, they should be bad. So things like that. You can never you can never plan for someone the way someone thinks and the kind of mindset people have in terms of what their expectations are. So yeah, it's all of those. And yeah, I think the show answer is common sense, but other contributing factors as well.
You say you haven't had any dangerous situations and all that kind of stuff, But what about difficult scenarios or have you had any difficult clients that have been awkward to look after?
Yeah? Two specific individuals. One was a thing I don't mind saying this. Actually. One was a singer from South America. She's not very famous it, but very famous in the US and South America the Americas in general. She was just you're not going to point out, you know, I don't think for approceed elimination. I was going to know who she is, but she was she was just an answer. She just the She was in London for three days and she bought so much luggage that she had to have a whole van bring her luggage for a free day visit. I mean, a proper diva. We don't mind divas women. You know, women want to look good and they don't want to end women and women we love women. But she was just like so excessive. I remember I remember one. We were staying in you know, Park Plane, which is where a majority of our so hotels are a London, or at least they used to be. And from there, Hefrow Airport is about forty five minutes if you're lucky. She was due to fly. I don't know three pm. You come come ten to three, she's she's still in her room. And when I'm not exaggerating, right, And I explained to her that when she came out, I said, you know, first name, because I've been calling her first name the whole time. Then that became inappropriate all of a sudden, right, I was like, okay, mom, whatever you want me to be, I don't want to call and she and she went, we need to go now. I was like, you're not going to make that fly. It's in ten minutes that you've got to get through casts. We've got to get Like what how do you think it was? And she went, listen you just anyway. So what happened was the record label called me and they said to me, what's going on? Why she late? So this is us trying to get to the airport in ten minutes, right or less? And I said, well, and I'm trying to because I'm in the front of the car, so you can obviously hear me. I said, well, I was trying a bit late, you know, trying to people. And they went, what do you think we need to do? I said, well, I think we need to book a hotel or another flight, the two options. You know, what can you do? It's pretty basic anyway, and she went maybe she fucking offloaded onto me. How dare you talk about my business? I was like, and I told her it was and she went, I don't care. They she just went mad, mate. She was swearing at me and everything. I was like, you know what, if this car went druggling so fast, I'll jump out of it. Like, honestly, it was so bad. It was that right, It was so bad. And in the end I was like miss fly. And the next time what she did was she got so annoyed by all of this she booked her own hotel and she told the driver to turn around. We have to explain so that you could do this on the motorway, right. I said, turn around, you turn around, so listen. And then I got them. I said, you're in the UK now, You're not in the US or wherever you come from, so you don't do this kind of thing here, right, we'll turn off the nearest exit and we'll go to your hotel. She booked her hotel self because she got so pissed off when we got there. She just went and didn't say by anything, obviously, and then I called the record episode. I don't. I don't think it's a good idea. I got back there tomorrow and they went, yeah, she's already suggested that, so they had said someone else with her, and they called me back the next day to apologize for her behavior, which has never happened. Never happened. So yeah, that was probably the worst, one of the worst ones. Another one, I've got me really careful because this woman's really famous. She's not celebrity as such, but she's high ranking individual as it were. And I worked with her one on what I'm don't have to be tread carefully. I worked with her one on one. She's from overseas, lived in the UK, and she was literally just like a proverbial princess, because you know, I worked at princesses and they're not either. She just was like spoto on a Polish I saw like staff Nanny's maids running out of the house crying, like streaming tears because of the way that she had spoken to them, and she'd refused to pay people. After like three two months working there, I didn't get paid for like three months. And then she tried blaming other people. She'd done all sorts of horrible stuff. She was just a terrible person. And in the end, I was just and it, to be honest with you, the reason I stuck with it so long. I stopped there for about three months four months, And the reason I had to leave in the end was because she was just doing reasonable things that she would say, Look, I need you to come on a Saturday. So I'm not I don't work saturdays. You know you've been offered someone to cover you on weekends, or we can do free on three days on four days off whatever, and she went and I'm not paying for her well, okay, because I need to come on Saturday. And in the end, like an idiot, I went on a Saturday and I said, look, I've got things I've got I'm not supposed to be I'm supposed to pick up my child. She goes, look, I just need you for two hours. I was like, I fine. Eighteen hours later, I'm not joking, I'm not Eighteen hours later she came out of this place, and I must look like I had a face. A bunch goes, what's wrong you U okay? And I was like, yeah, I'm fine. So then there was that I wish I could tell you more. Unfortunately, because of the nature of the work, I can't. As you know, I've had this so much. But yeah, it's she's very wealthy, but used that massively to her advantage. She wasn't the famous one. She married someone who was very, very high ranking. Yeah, very high ranking in political political Yeah. Yeah. I worked for a while and I'm leaving. I gave her a day's notice. That was it.
You have any regrets.
I wish I've done an operational tour of duty. Honestly, I wish I solved my country properly, and I didn't, and I regret that. Again, very conscious to all veterans that it's easy for me to sit and say that. I do genuinely think about it quite a lot all the time in terms of my career as a close protect protection officer or whatever. No, No, I think I was if I was lucky, I had some ups and downs. Don't get me wrong. You learn, You have to learn. I think in our industry, if you don't make adjustments for every time you make a mistake quickly, then you're going to fail pretty rapidly. Because in the UK, like especially, it's the market is saturated. It's so I mean, I don't know how many license holders there are, but there's got to be an excess of fifteen to twenty thousand license holders for close protection. And the reality is there's less than two hundred and four time jobs for close protection in the UK, I think, and all the others a sort of add hoc and all the rest of it, and those that get to travel are either doing hostile environments for which you don't need the UK license anyway, it might help, but you don't need it. And the other stuff. Yeah, like I said, it's just that hot. So you either make everything convenient for your client or your clients, or you you know, oh sorry, and you learn from every mistake as quickly as possible. Otherwise you're going to set yourself up to fail. Everyone makes mistakes, it's just you've got fingers crossed. The cross your finger sorry that people recognize that everyone makes mistakes and you know you've learned from it and move on or not. But yeah, I don't think I have any major in that's in the sort of private sectic point. Thanks, no worries, many THANKSG.
