Having worked as a bodyguard for some of the world’s most famous faces, I know a thing or two about the realities of being a celebrity. Some of my A-list clients include Kendall Jenner, Bella Hadid, Rita Ora, and the late-Michael Jackson, alongside an array of high-net-worth individuals. When working as an A-list bodyguard, the stakes are high – if anything goes wrong, you’re the one who gets in trouble. But it’s also incredibly rewarding and has led to many other opportunities, including becoming famous in my own right.

My career started off in the military, which is a natural progression for a lot of bodyguards. When I left the army, I was a bodyguard for the Foreign Commonwealth Office in Iraq for three years. I have also worked in Afghanistan and done anti-piracy work on the tankers in the Gulf of Aden. Between this, I worked as a freelance bodyguard alongside model agencies, tour managers and record labels. Later, I set up my own private security company based in London.

I was coming home on leave from Afghanistan in 2006 when I got a call asking if I could do a job looking after a guy coming to London for ten days. It turned out to be Michael Jackson, who was in the UK to attend the World Music Awards. I was just 26 at the time, but he’s still my most famous client to date.

Madness followed Michael Jackson everywhere, so there were five bodyguards on that job to look after him. Out of all my celebrity clients, Michael was the one I had the least contact with because his entourage was so big – he had fifteen or sixteen staff come over from the states to do various jobs. Fans would fly from all over the world, and some of them had black cabs running on meters all day just so they could follow us around. Others paid fortunes to stay in the hotel he was in so they could sit in the lobby and try and catch a glimpse of him. Sometimes they would even try to crawl between your legs to get to him.

The fans weren’t hostile, but the sheer volume of them meant it was a hard crowd to control. We couldn’t move Michael around much because of all the crowds – there was no casual walks in the park or popping to the shops. We stuck to taking him places he was booked to go to, otherwise it would have been a disaster. The only place we went was Topshop at Oxford Street, which they opened at midnight for him so he could get free reign.

My favourite client I’ve ever worked with is Bella Hadid. I was her bodyguard for two years whenever she came to London – she’s lovely and working with her was always a good day out. She listened to my advice, and we had a good working relationship. I also worked for other models, such as Kendall Jenner and Gigi Hadid who, like Bella, were always very polite and accommodating.

How much contact you have with a celebrity all depends on what they prefer – some like you close by, while others prefer you to stay in the car. Some celebrities could be divas, particularly the ones who didn’t like having security. I tried to avoid those clients. If I saw a job come up with someone who was known for being a nightmare, I’d say no.

Spending so much time with celebrities has opened my eyes up to the realities of fame. One of my main takeaways? It’s a nuisance. Not being able to go to the petrol station or buy milk without ending up in the tabloids is a huge infringement on your life. It’s all well and good if you can make money from it, but if you can’t its absolute hell. That’s something people who go on reality shows to find fame don’t understand.

I’ve learned that celebrities are, underneath it all, just normal people. At the end of the day, they cry, go to the bathroom, sleep, and eat like the rest of us. Quite a lot of them struggle with their mental health, too. When you remove the ball gown, or take them out of the movie they’re in, they’re not all that different. Some of the celebrities I was friendly with would open up to me if they were having a bad day. I’d spend some mornings just chatting to them when they were feeling a bit emotional.

The celebrity landscape has changed a lot since I was working as a bodyguard. The early noughties were a very different time. There are so many more celebrities now, from D-listers to influencers. Cancel culture is massive, too – once you get cancelled, that’s it. There’s a lot of sadness to it. There was also much more paparazzi back then, as it was before the days of Instagram. I always had a good understanding with the paparazzi in London. I tried to keep them on side – if there was a time when we didn’t want to be photographed, there was a good chance they’d listen to me if I said no.

There’s no typical day in the life of a celebrity bodyguard – it all depends on your client. If you’re looking after an actress, you might start at 4am if they have an early call time. With models, I’ve done 24-hour shifts before. You wake up before your client and go to bed after them, so you need to be able to think clearly when you’re severely tired. Even when you’re in a restaurant, you need to have finished your food before they have. You might get to eat a meal at a fancy restaurant, but you don’t often have time to enjoy it because you’ve got to pick something based on how quickly you can eat it.

One of the misconceptions people have is that you need to be big and tough. Of course, you have to be able to look after two people if something does go wrong – yourself and the client. But a big part of the job is mental agility, too. When celebrities have a day off to do what they want, it’s your job to advise them on whether it’s a good idea, and to be prepared in case anything goes wrong. That’s especially the case for celebrities who have paparazzi following them all the time – they can’t wait for something to go wrong so they can get a picture of it. Other than that, unless a celebrity has a stalker, which lots do at some point or another, I’m mostly just protecting them from over excited fans and stuff we all experience, such as theft.

Looking after billionaires is a different ball game all together. They aren’t as widely recognised as celebrities, so it’s easier from a security point of view. But there’s often a lot more to look after – they have boats, houses all round the world, expensive watches. Your advice is responsible for all of that.

In a strange turn of events, my career as a celebrity bodyguard led me to become famous in my own right. That took a bit of getting used to. I got offered to do a film in 2010 while I was a working bodyguard. Over the pandemic, I went to acting school and got an agent, which landed me more roles, including in Green Zone Thriller and Sherlock Holmes, A Game of Shadows. I also became recognised for my fashion sense while working as a bodyguard. Vogue published a picture of me when I was working with Bella at London Fashion Week, with the headline ‘Bella Hadid’s Bodyguard Is the Real Style Star of London Fashion Week.’

Fast forward seven years and I now have my own clothing brand, Simon Newton London. I’m not a bodyguard anymore but being recognised when I’m out and about feels like a full circle moment after working with celebrities for so long.

As told to Alice Hall