Megan McKenna has relocated to Germany permanently after machete-wielding intruders broke into her home, leaving her too scared to live in England by herself. The former The Only Way Is Essex star, 33, revealed the incident, which happened two years ago, on the Great Company With Jamie Laing podcast.
Break-in details
McKenna said she was robbed "really badly" in her own home, and the ordeal scared her so much that she now lives full-time in Germany, where her husband Oliver Burke is based. Burke, 29, is a footballer currently signed with Union Berlin and previously played for SV Werder Bremen.
The reality star explained that the break-in happened shortly after the couple's honeymoon in Montenegro. Her husband had to travel back to Germany the day after they landed in the UK, leaving her alone in their house. She fell asleep around 11pm and woke to find the house "shaking".
Intruders hacked through wall
McKenna described waking up in a disorientated state, realising something was wrong. She said: "I get goose pimples now thinking about it. They were inside my house, but I lock my bedroom door every night because I always worry about something happening to me when I'm on my own."
She continued: "The next thing I know, my mirror has come off my wall, and they're hacking a hole through my wall with a baseball bat. They're three masked men with machetes and baseball bats, and they managed to hack a hole in my wall because it was a fake wall going onto my dressing room, linked to my bedroom."
McKenna, who was terrified the intruders would kill her dog, quickly phoned the police. She said: "They were in my house for seven minutes. It was the longest seven minutes I've ever experienced in my entire life, and the police were saying to me 'Don't speak to them.'"
Confrontation and aftermath
She said: "I said, 'If I don't go and talk to them and ask them what they want, they're going to come in and kill my dog.' I went over to them. I was naked." McKenna approached one of the men, who was wearing a balaclava, and he took her jewellery. She also said she cut her foot, leaving "blood everywhere".
The intruders left after getting her jewellery, which she now thinks was the only thing they wanted, and she described the break-in as "obviously targeted". She added: "I was like, 'I'm not safe in my own home.' The police were amazing at the time, but I was then going through IVF to have [her son] Landon, and they wanted me to go on trial."
She said: "And I just said to them, like, I actually can't physically do that. Go through it. They got caught, and then they went on trial, and then a year later, they just got let out. They're just roaming the roads."
