Alex Scott was once nearly kidnapped by an Uber driver in Russia.

Alex Scott was once nearly kidnapped by an Uber driver in Russia

Alex Scott was once nearly kidnapped by an Uber driver in Russia

The 38-year-old TV presenter was working for the BBC in Moscow in 2018 when she ordered a car for a 15-minute journey to her hotel, during which the "stacked, bald" driver used Google translate to tell her she wouldn't be making it home, resulting in her body going "numb".

In her memoir 'How (Not) To Be Strong', she wrote: "He looked at me and said - in English - ‘Tell them they will never see you again.’

"‘I don’t understand,’ I stammered.

"My Uber driver picked up his phone and spoke into it, waiting for me to see the words as they appeared via Google Translate. ‘Tonight I am not taking you home,’ [it] read. ‘You come with me.’

"'Oh my God,’ was my first thought... ‘I’m never going to see Mum again.’ "

But Alex told the driver she was meeting Russian president Vladimir Putin the next day, after she had met him at the Kremlin alongside fellow BBC pundit Rio Ferdinand earlier that day.

She warned the motorist that Putin would "find" him if she wasn't there to meet him, and he started driving back to her hotel.

Alex wrote: "Putin! I had been with Putin that morning! ‘You can’t kill me,’ I said. ‘I have to see Putin tomorrow.'

"He started laughing. ‘No one sees Putin’. I was scrambling now, pulling up photos from the morning’s visit to the Kremlin that had made newspaper headlines. His laughter died and I could see the cogs whirring as he tried to process what I was showing him. ‘If I don’t see Putin tomorrow, he will find you.’ "

Elsewhere in the book, Alex revealed she was "madly and deeply in love" with fellow former England and Arsenal footballer Kelly Smith.

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