Fay Ripley has revealed an old holiday romance was actually a foil for a jewellery thief.
Fay Ripley had a criminal romantic past
The ‘Cold Feet’ star had a whirlwind fling with a Greek waterski instructor called Thanos who she met while sunning herself with her dad Ben during an '80s break to Greece.
Fay, 58, thought Thanos was in love with her, but now understands he was using her as a decoy to ship stolen goods from Corfu. Fay became suspicious she was under surveillance from Interpol after she spotted a van near her home in North West London when she returned.
The 58-year-old actress told Alan Carr on his ‘Life’s A Beach’ podcast: “I think I was followed by Interpol. I was living above a Boots on Golders Green high street.
“I swear I heard a very rare Barbra Streisand track that was playing in my flat coming out of a fan. I think they were bugging me.
Fay explained that she was “down on her luck” during this period of her life in her 20s and ended up going on vacation with her father to Greece, where she met and fell in love with Thanos.
She told the 48-year-old comedian: “I think I had a holiday romance with the same person that everyone else had a holiday romance with.
“I was down on my luck, in my mid-twenties and my dad said, ‘Come on holiday with us, I’ll pay.’ It was like a shot.
“The romance was three or four days. Thanos said he loved me, and was going to come to England with me. I said I also love you, Thanos. But it seemed odd that he was coming to the airport and saying goodbye. We were all crying, he waved me goodbye, hugging.”
But the ‘Reggie Perrin’ star's dad got a telephone call from Interpol two weeks later informing him that Thanos had stolen £75,000 worth of jewellery from female guests at the hotel.
Fay - who has been married to Daniel Lapaine since 2001 and shares two children, Parker,17, and Sonny, 21, with him - added: "I thought he loved me. I think I was just a decoy – it’s sad. I was really taken for a ride. That was a shame.”
Interpol officers believed Thanos had passed jewellery to Fay at the airport, but she had not received anything from him.
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