Celebrity Traitors’ Ross Kemp admits he ‘sat in tears’ after horrific moment on show

One of Ross’ most memorable projects was Sky One’s Ross Kemp: Extreme World, which ran from 2011 to 2017 and saw him travel the globe in search of some of the world’s grittiest stories

Ross Kemp is best known for playing EastEnders hardman Grant Mitchell, a role he held for a decade before leaving the soap in 1999. He later carved out a successful career in documentary-making, tackling hard-hitting subjects including Somali pirates, gang violence and the war in Afghanistan.

One of his most memorable projects was Sky One’s Ross Kemp: Extreme World, which ran from 2011 to 2017. The series saw Ross travel the globe in search of some of the world’s grittiest stories, often placing him in challenging environments and leading to some truly shocking encounters.

Across six series, the Celebrity Traitors star investigated a wide range of issues, including violence in oil-rich Venezuela, sectarian conflict in Lebanon, crack addiction in the slums of Rio de Janeiro, and Libya’s “migrant hell”.

One interview, however, turned out to be far worse than he anticipated: a meeting with “probably the worst man I ever met” — a trafficker known as Mr Khan, who was alleged to have sold girls as young as 12.

He wrote in his 2023 book, Take Nothing for Granted: Tales from an Unexpected Life, about the 2013 encounter in India: “I’ve been angry before. But this was different. I sat there and I knew without a doubt that the world would be a better place without this man in it.”

Ross said the figure who stepped out from the treeline wasn’t the kind of person he’d imagined at all. He came across as slim and youthful, dressed casually in a baseball cap and wearing rings.

“He started out by convincing girls from the village that he was going to marry them, then he’d take them to the cities – at which point he would sell them on. Seven years later, he said he now had a network of seventy-five people traffickers working under him.

“Despite more than twenty-five active investigations against him, he had never been charged with anything. When I asked how many girls he had trafficked, he said three or four thousand.

“As he described how they would go to poor communities and look for ‘real beauties’, I could feel my hands making themselves into fists. He described how the girls were auctioned to the highest bidder.”

Mr Khan told Ross the top price he’d ever got was £8,500 and rejected the suggestion he’d sold a nine-year-old. But he acknowledged trafficking many 12-year-olds

“He described how girls who tried to run away or ‘were trouble’ would be killed and buried in the country. He bribed the police to look the other way. When I asked him how many girls, he replied between four and five hundred.”

Ross noted that the man kept his gaze on the floor throughout, using his cap to conceal his face. To this individual, Ross claimed, the children were simply “numbers” or “merchandise”.

Ross then pressed him on whether he planned to carry on killing. “He said, ‘If I’m having problems, I’ll have to carry on killing.’ And he looked sorry for himself and a tear rolled down his cheek. I could just about take everything up until that point, but I couldn’t take his self-pity. I told the fixer to get him out of my sight.”

Ross revealed it was one of the rare occasions he’s terminated an interview early, leaving his translator visibly shaken. She wept as she relayed what she was hearing.

“Afterwards, we both sat in tears”, Ross added.