Ross Kemp feature

[faceless]

I WASN'T TOO BOTHERED ABOUT BEING SHOT.. I WAS ON FIRE AT THE TIME
By Clare Raymond
DOUSED in petrol and engulfed in flames, Ross Kemp fights for his life as a thug starts shooting at him... Incredibly, this isn't a scene in his latest TV drama. It's a shockingly violent initiation ceremony the actor endured to win over Russian neo-Nazis. "They wanted to prove how tough they were and how soft I was," says the EastEnders hard man. "I got shot in the hand and body with an advanced airgun and ended up being scarred for life."

The 42-year-old went through hell making the second series of Ross Kemp On Gangs, meeting warlords in South Africa, El Salvador, Guatemala and Ontario, as well as Russia - none of whom knew or cared about his macho image back home. Recalling his battle in Moscow, Ross says: "I know I was shot a couple of times - it felt like being hit by a nail gun - but I didn't worry too much. I was too concerned about being on fire. I was only in flames for a short while and managed to pass the test - for all the good it did me."

Ross, who played Grant Mitchell in the BBC soap, came under fire again in El Salvador with the MS13 gang. "We were in a house when a rival gang arrived and started firing. Panic ensued, the director dived under a bed and I ran with the cameraman to find out what was wrong. But it was over by the time we got there. We just started laughing in relief."

The latest series is littered with hairy moments, as when he met two junkies in a St Louis tenement. "It was actually the closest I came to getting shot," Ross recalls. "They were stoned off their faces and had been smoking liquid angel dust. They wore masks to conceal their identities and one started to pull out these drugs he was trying to sell me. Then he pulled out a Colt 45 and slammed it down. I honestly thought it was going to go off."

In South Africa's Pollsmore prison, Ross encountered the scariest man he has ever met. General John Mongrel, leader of the 28s gang, has been in prison for murder for 27 years, since he was 14. "The memory of his breath will stay with me for a long time - it smelled like road kill left out in the sun. Since he'd been inside, he'd cut out a warder's eye and he rapes a different inmate every three weeks. He described how he kills with a toothbrush melted to a point. He was heavily tattooed but, instead of needles, he'd use a razor blade..."

As well as being shocked by the men he met, Ross was moved by the women and children gang members in El Salvador. "I had tears in my eyes when I met 10 women in prison," he says. "I could hear their children playing in the creche. They were giggling when they told me they had killed people. They asked me to bring heavy foundation powder with me because under their make-up they were 'branded' with the name of their gang, so they couldn't move out of the area without being shot by a rival gang."

At another El Salvador jail, Ross was intimidated by the main man. "All the inmates were facially tattooed and heavily built. I could tell the head honcho disliked me intensely and was on the verge of hurting me. He said I reminded him of a cop that used to beat him up when he was a kid."

Despite his close encounters with society's underbelly, Ross stresses that he doesn't judge or glamorise the people he meets. "The point is to highlight how lucky we are in Britain and to show that these gangs aren't the coolest thing on the planet." Ross may have endured several near-death experiences for the show but that hasn't seemed to deter him. He's now planning to meet more fearsome gangs in Mumbai, Jamaica and Bogota for the next series....

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I watched some of the first series of this and it was a fairly interesting show... I'll post an episode if anyone's interested?

[btaylo24]

I watched these "-On Gangs" series and I am not sure what to make of him... They were interesting but I dont enjoy watching Him..... I am sure he thinks that HE WAS actually in the SAS or Marines!. I dont think he asked the probing questions I would of asked the crack heads!


As my wife says 'he could not fight his way out of a wet paper bag"

Barry