CONTACT DETAILS

Postal address:
PO BOX 12382, CENTURION, 0046, REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA

Telephone +27 12 653 4947 | Telefax +27 86 661 1884 | Cellular +27 83 281 1884
Email: jan@pro-tect.co.za

________________________________________________________________________

NEWS RELEASE: Pro-Tect addresses growing threat to local celebrity security ________________________________________________________________________

Ever since actress Rebecca Schaeffer was killed by a crazed fan in 1989, Hollywood has taken the threat of stalkers and kidnappers very seriously. An obsessed Michael Douglas fan last year threatened to “slice up like meat on a bone and feed to the dogs” his wife, actress Catherine Zeta Jones. Few people realised that Russell Crowe attended the 2001 Oscar ceremony under armed guard, because the FBI were investigating a plot by Al Queda to kidnap the Gladiator star. In 1997 police apprehended a trespasser on director Steven Spielberg's Malibu estate and later found pictures of Spielberg and his family in his possession, along with duct tape, curtain rods, handcuffs and a utility knife, uncovering a plot to kidnap and rape the director. And Victoria and David Beckham have already had two kidnapping plots against their children, Romeo and Brooklyn , foiled by British police.

Does that mean that our local celebrities are in similar danger? Local television personality Colin Moss made headlines recently when he went public with a stalker threat against him. He is by no means the first South African celebrity to discover that obsessed fans can cast a dark shadow over the glamour of fame. Former Miss SA, Batsetsana Khumalo, was plagued for five years by a man who called her his “wife”. According to a Sunday Times report she called in the police when he turned his attention to her newborn baby. Another former Miss SA, Joan Ramagoshi, spoke out on Carte Blanche about how constant harassment by a Pretoria boxing coach made her life “a nightmare”.

“[Celebrity stalking] is more common than people realise,” Prof. Lourens Schlebush, head of medical psychology at the University of Natal 's Nelson R Mandela School of Medicine, commented in a debate on the Vicious Delicious talk show on the DSTV channel, Go. “I would take it very seriously,” he added.

Pro-Tect International, the undisputed leader in celebrity protection in South Africa , is addressing this risk by joining forces with media consultants Sharon Bezuidenhout & Associates to form Pro-Tect Celebrity, a full-service celebrity protection, logistics and media agency. “Our local celebrity culture is growing fast, and with it comes increased risk,” says Pro-Tect's Adriaan Heijns. He says local celebrities still tend not to take adequate security measures, because they generally appreciate informal contact with their fans and don't want to create a pretentious image. “But there are a variety of ways in which a discreet close protection expert can make a public figure's job easier and – more importantly – safer,” he said. “More than ten years experience protecting visiting celebrities has taught us that effective celebrity protection is inextricably intertwined with all other aspects of celebrity management, like logistical planning and media management. Together, our two companies can cover all those aspects.”

Pro-Tect Celebrity clients can make use of any combination of a wide range of services, ranging from a discreet bodyguard presence for public appearances, to full-scale tour management.