Strictly Come Dancing judge Craig Revel Horwood has revealed he was stabbed and subjected to a strip search during a holiday in Spain.
The 61-year-old dancer recounted the ordeal, stating jewellery was stolen from him during the Madrid stabbing.
He further disclosed he was searched for drugs as he attempted to leave the country. The incident happened in 1988, when Horwood was 23 years old.
Speaking on the Judgemental podcast, which he hosts with fellow Strictly judge Anton Du Beke, Revel Horwood said: “I went on holiday in Madrid and got stabbed, that was nice, and it was stinking hot.
“My jewellery was stolen as well, they ripped my necklace off my neck and gave me a big burn mark…
“It was a razor blade… I was slashed… (in the) stomach coming home from a club, it was probably two o’clock in the morning, but that’s sort of normal, you go out for dinner at 10 or 11.
“But I remember I was dancing at the Lido in Paris, and we went to Madrid for a holiday, so that ended up pretty bad.
“And then when I got back, I got strip-searched. I hadn’t shaved, so I did look a bit of a wreck, I’d been stabbed, I had burn marks all around my neck from where I was, like, attacked.
“And then the French strip searched me down to literally nothing…. they were looking for drugs.”
Revel Horwood went on to say that disaster also struck during a trip to Mombasa in Kenya, where he found out his hotel had burned down when he arrived at the airport.
He added: “I remember flying to Mombasa in Kenya. It was all fabulous, I thought, ‘oh yeah, I’m going on safari, that’s going to be nice.’
“Got out there, arrived, all the hotels and everything were paid for in advance, they’re giving us a bus from the airport to the hotel, and they said on arrival, ‘your hotel has burnt down’…
“The hotel was burnt down, and no one bothered to tell us until we actually arrived.”
He added: “Anyway, they found us another one, they just shoved us in there, (and) I went on, you know, a very romantic cruise down the River Nile…
“Then the next day we all had to go to the airport and leave all the crews, and one by one, when we’re standing in the queue at the airport, people just were falling to the ground, literally dropping, like boom.”
He went on to say that the sickness was later revealed to be salmonella poisoning from “off chicken” those on the trip had eaten the night before.
The new series of Strictly Come Dancing will air on BBC One and iPlayer this September, with the likes of EastEnders’ Lacey Turner, Love Island’s Dani Dyer, singer Delta Goodrem and House of the Dragon star Bethany Antonia among those taking part.
