Zara McDermott has revealed she was almost arrested in a “really, really scary” incident while filming the BBC documentary Thailand: The Dark Side of Paradise. The former Love Island star turned documentary maker described the experience as “petrifying” after Bangkok police threatened to arrest her and her crew despite having obtained permission to film.
The upcoming three-part docuseries explores the pros and cons of Thailand as a destination for young Brits. McDermott recounted that tensions escalated with police while filming in bars in a red-light district where prostitution is available, though illegal. The bar owners reportedly pressured the crew to leave, and in one instance, a crew member had an ashtray thrown at their head.
“The whole sequence gets cut down. But that was over the span of a few hours of filming there, the tensions were starting to increase with the police,” McDermott told MailOnline. “We nearly got arrested because of the filming that we were doing, but, the interesting thing about that is that we'd got all the permissions in advance. We'd been okay to film there.”
The confrontation, including the thrown ashtray, will be shown in the programme. The first episode airs on September 8. McDermott has previously fronted BBC documentaries on Ibiza, revenge porn, rape culture, and disordered eating.
