Sir Tom Jones believes God saved him from drowning in shark-infested waters.
Sir Tom Jones
The 80-year-old singer recalled how he got into trouble after he decided to cool off in the water while at a beach barbecue in Acapulco, Mexico, in 1980 but was unable to swim back to the shore, so was convinced it was time to "give up and say good night" when he realised he'd mistakenly kept his cross necklace on and sent out a "desperate" appeal.
Speaking to Alan Carr on his 'Life's A Beach' podcast, the 'It's Not Unusual' hitmaker recalled: "Me, schmuck, thought just over this dune is the ocean... so I wonder off like a fool, and I look at the calm water and think it looks lovely out there.
"I go through the breakers and start swimming out, then somebody comes looking for me, standing on the beach and I look at them and the fellas about this big
"I swam down and hadn't moved an inch. I thought, 'This is it now.'
"I always used to take my jewellery off and put it in my man bag, for some reason I didn’t. I put my hand on my chest and still had this big cross and chain on.
"I put my hand on it and said, 'God, I'm desperate here. What do I do?' I was going to give up. I thought I'd take a load of water in and say good night.
"A voice came to me and said, 'If you think you can swim, now is the time to prove it.' "
The divine intervention gave Tom the confidence to "go like the clappers" and swim to safety, and once back on land, he discovered the water was also infested by sharks.
He continued: "So I start to head towards the beach, head down I go like the clappers. I'm caught in the breaker and I'm looking for the light to find what way is up, because I'm spun.
"Surely I'm going to be thrown on the beach and break my neck? The wave tossed me on to the beach."
Alan then asked him if he was sure he'd heard the voice of God and "not a lifeguard with a megaphone".
His guest replied: "'Definitely, on my life. Then I talked to real swimmers who said the undertow was taking you out to sea, you have to go left or right or you’ll never make it. There’s no way, you must have had some divine thing. It was not your time to go."
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