Secret DJ condemns ‘plague raves’ as he tells how he ‘died for five minutes’ during weeks-long COVID coma
A British DJ who spent weeks in a coma after contracting coronavirus in Ibiza has told how he “died for five minutes” during his ordeal – and says he has received death threats for speaking out against others in the industry who continued to perform during the pandemic.
Known as The Secret DJ, the 51-year-old has not played live since November 2019 and had been warning of the dangers of COVID-19 and “plague raves” long before he contracted the Delta variant himself early in July of this year.
However, he claims some in the industry travelled abroad during the pandemic to perform in countries with fewer restrictions than their own. “You’ve killed people and you don’t even want to know about it,” he says, of any who did.
Warning: This article contains images of injuries
After falling ill himself and being flown by helicopter to Majorca for treatment, the DJ – who does not reveal his identity, having written books anonymously about the industry – told Sky News he was left “like a corpse”, his body ravaged by the virus, and that he later found out his heart had stopped while he was in an induced coma.
Doctors told him being vaccinated had most likely saved his life. The virus left him with lung damage, while his weeks in a hospital bed left him with severe muscle atrophy, but by September he was back at home in Ibiza and having physio.
However, the story doesn’t stop there. During a cycle ride at the beginning of November, as he began exercising to get himself back to strength, he put his foot down coming to a stop – and his leg, weakened following his time in hospital, “shattered”.
After undergoing surgery, the DJ has been told it may be months before he can walk again. Unable to work, he has set up a GoFundMe account to help with his medical bills. Despite the discomfort, he describes his leg injury as “a birthday present” compared with the “six weeks of living hell” of having COVID-19, and wants to warn others that lives are still at risk.
“You very much learn the difference between discomfort and pain [when you are seriously ill with COVID],” he tells Sky News. “Constant and intense discomfort is the sort of thing you torture people with.
“Pain peaks and troughs, it disappears, but [this was] constant, intense discomfort, like every time you breathe – which is what, 20,000 times a day? It’s like drowning 20,000 times a day.”
‘You were dead’: Waking up in hospital on a different island
The DJ pictured in hospital in Majorca. He had written ‘sin cerebro’ – ‘without brain’ in Spanish – as a joke on a bedpan
When he fell ill – he thinks he contracted the virus going out to watch England play Italy in the Euro 2020 final – he recognised the symptoms; the DJ believes he previously had COVID early in 2020, but could not test for it at the time. This time round, and after having his first vaccine, he decided to stay at home and isolate.
By day 10, he says he was passing out, injuring his head when he keeled over in his kitchen. Luckily, he came to long enough to call emergency services.
The DJ awoke in hospital in Majorca, not realising he had been there for several weeks. While he speaks a little Spanish, he says the language barrier meant he was not aware at first of the full extent of what he had been through.
“When I was welI enough one day I got up [out of bed] to adjust the blinds,” he says. “A doctor came in and said, ‘What are you doing, man? You had double pneumonia. I had my hand in your chest cavity two weeks ago. You were dead’.”
He says he was told his heart had stopped for five minutes.
By the time he was well enough to be discharged and fly home, his appearance had changed dramatically. “I was [like] a corpse. I was about half my size, I was practically translucent.”
He found himself being taken in a wheelchair through Ibiza airport, surrounded by “my people, the kids I make dance” as they arrived for holidays.
The after-effects of weeks in hospital
The DJ was left with serious injuries after breaking his leg – due to being left with weak bones following weeks of being bedbound in hospital
Determined to get back to normal, his recovery at home was going well – until the bike accident. His leg was snapped in three places, his foot dangling.
Now, he is starting recovery all over again. “[The doctor] says I will walk again one day,” he says. “He said it might take six months, might take a year, but he says you can come back from it. And I know I can come back from it because I’ve come back from worse than this.”
It is one of the many complications of being seriously ill with COVID-19, he says, of having to spend so long in a hospital bed without moving.
So he wants his story to be a cautionary tale.
“It’s really simple, you know, just imagine it might be you who dies. Just imagine it might be you that’s in an iron lung. Just imagine it might be your mum that dies.
“When I was in intensive care in Majorca, there were kids in there, perfectly healthy kids, children. There was people in their 80s. It doesn’t discriminate.
“The doctor said to me, ‘you’d be dead if you hadn’t had the vaccine’. People say, ‘you got the jab, but you got COVID anyway’, like it’s an excuse not to have a jab. No, I got the jab and I didn’t die because I had it.”
‘COVID isn’t going anywhere’: A warning to others
The DJ says he was a resident at some big clubs in Ibiza under his own name before creating The Secret DJ
The Secret DJ has not performed since 2019, has had no paid DJing work for two years. He describes himself as “a mid-range DJ” who played internationally and had been a resident at some of Ibiza’s biggest clubs.
Before The Secret DJ took hold he performed under his own name, but had started performing under the guise – behind a screen – just before COVID-19 hit.
During the pandemic, he used social media and wrote for industry publications urging others not to travel to countries with fewer restrictions to perform when lockdowns were in place in the UK or Spain and elsewhere.
Now that many lockdowns have lifted, he says believes people still need to consider mass events carefully.
“I spent the entire COVID period telling people not to DJ,” he says. “We call them plague raves – don’t plague rave, don’t spread COVID. Because some DJs were individual super-spreader events, they were literally flying all over the world throughout COVID, wherever they could possibly play.
“My DJs, my people who have been travelling around the world – you’ve killed people.”
He says he has received death threats for speaking out.
“When you p*ss off the fans of somebody very famous, it goes very badly, basically. You can get hundreds of death threats a day if you p*ss off the right person.
“It’s not my place to tell anybody what to do, but you must be aware there are consequences. COVID is still there. If you go out, somebody could get sick. Are you okay with that?
“It’s your decision – but it’s not going anywhere, and it kills people.”
Sean “Diddy” Combs led a criminal enterprise for two decades, using “power, violence and fear” to carry out brutal crimes, believing his “fame, wealth and power” put him above the law, a prosecutor has told his trial.
Christy Slavik spoke for nearly five hours, as she presented the prosecution’s closing arguments after more than six weeks of testimony and 34 witnesses.
Prosecutor Christy Slavik pictured outside court earlier this week. Pic: AP
She began by describing the 55-year-old music mogul, telling the court: “He’s the leader of a criminal enterprise. He doesn’t take ‘no’ for an answer. And now you know about many crimes he committed with members of his enterprise.”
She said charges of sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy were supported by proof that over two decades, Combs kidnapped one of his employees, committed arson by trying to blow up fellow rapper Kid Cudi’s car, engaged in forced labour, bribed a security officer and carried out the “brutal crimes at the heart of this case.”
Ms Slavik said Combs “again and again forced, threatened and manipulated” his former girlfriend, Cassie Ventura and an ex-girlfriend who testified under the pseudonym Jane into drugged-up, elaborate sexual performances, dubbed “freak offs” or “hotel” or “king nights”.
“The defendant used power, violence and fear to get what he wanted,” she said. “He thought that his fame, wealth and power put him above the law.”
Combs is charged with one count of racketeering conspiracy, two charges of sex trafficking, and two charges of transportation to engage in prostitution.
He has pleaded not guilty to all charges and has strenuously denied all allegations of sexual abuse.
Read more:
Everything you need to know about the trial
The rise and fall of Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs
What we learned from Cassie’s testimony
Ms Slavik said Combs used a “small army” of employees – his trusted inner circle of staff including bodyguards and assistants – to “serve his needs,” covering up his harm to women in the process.
Homing in on the racketeering charge against him, she said, while Combs was already “very powerful”, he became even more so with the support of his business.
US Attorney Christy Slavik. Pic: Reuters/Jane Rosenberg
She said Combs and his inner circle “committed hundreds of racketeering acts,” including drug distribution, kidnapping, arson and witness tampering.
They listed drugs such as cocaine, meth, ketamine, Oxycodone and MDMA, that Combs’s assistants said they procured for him, or that federal agents said they found during raids of his multiple homes.
During parts of the evidence, Combs looked dejected, sitting with his head down, and with his chair pushed back from the defence table. At one point, when video footage of Combs appearing to beat Cassie at the InterContinental Hotel was shown to the court, he looked away.
Combs has been in a New York jail since his arrest in September last year. If convicted on all counts, he could face a minimum 15-year prison term and could be sentenced to life behind bars.
The 12-member jury must be unanimous to convict Combs on any of the counts.
Defence lawyers have conceded that Combs was involved in domestic violence but say he committed no federal crimes.
They say the women took part in the “freak offs” willingly and that there was no racketeering conspiracy because none of his employees agreed to be part of any conspiracy. They say the drugs procured were for his own personal use.
But in her closing argument, Ms Slavik said employees repeatedly agreed to commit crimes for Combs, such as delivering him drugs, accompanying him to kidnap his personal assistant, Capricorn Clark, and locking his girlfriend in a hotel room after he stomped on her face.
In her conclusion, she said proof of Combs’s guilt had been demonstrated, adding: “Before today, he was able to get away with it due to his money, power and influence, but that stops now…
“It is time to hold him accountable, it is time for justice, and it’s time to find him guilty.”
On Friday, Combs’s lead attorney Marc Agnifilo will give his closing argument, followed by the government’s rebuttal.
Judge Arun Subramanian says he will instruct the jury on the law later that day, allowing them to begin deliberating as early as late afternoon.
The trial continues.
Entertainment
Jeff Bezos’s Venice wedding celebrations begin with star-studded party after fresh protests
Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez’s star-studded wedding celebrations in Venice have begun, with VIP guests including the Kardashians descending on the Italian city.
The billionaire Amazon founder and his journalist fiancee waved to onlookers as they left a luxury hotel to travel to their pre-wedding reception by water taxi on Thursday evening.
Hollywood star Orlando Bloom was seen flashing a peace sign to fans as he left Venice’s Gritti Palace Hotel and he was soon followed by TV presenter Oprah Winfrey, who smiled and waved.
Orlando Bloom donning all white. Pic: Reuters
Oprah Winfrey is one of the 200-250 guests. Pic: Reuters
Kim and Khloe Kardashian travelled to the reception with their mother Kris Jenner – who snapped a picture of the pair on a water taxi – and other notable figures in town for the nuptials include Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner.
Some 200-250 A-list guests from showbusiness, politics and finance are expected to attend the events, with the wedding and its parts estimated to cost €40m-€48m (£34m-£41m).
Bezos, his soon-to-be wife and their famous guests have taken over numerous locations in the city, with the couple staying in the luxury Aman hotel, where rooms go for at least €4,000 per night.
Kris Jenner snaps a photo of Khloe and Kim Kardashian. Pic: Reuters
The bride and groom leaving their hotel. Pic: AP
The first of the weekend’s many wedding parties is taking place in the cloisters of Madonna dell’Orto, a medieval church that hosts masterpieces by 16th century painter Tintoretto.
While the couple and their A-list guests were all smiles, some in Venice are not happy about the wedding – with protesters seeing it as an example of the city being gift-wrapped for ultra-rich outsiders.
Read more: Why are activists protesting the wedding?
An activist from Extinction Rebellion unfolds a banner in front of St Mark’s Basilica. Pic: AP
An activist climbed one of the poles in the main St Mark’s Square on Thursday, unfurling a banner which said: “The 1% ruins the world.”
Elsewhere, a life-size mannequin of Bezos clutching an Amazon box was dropped into one of the city’s famous canals.
In a bid to keep demonstrators away from Thursday’s party, the city council banned pedestrians and water traffic from the area surrounding the venue, from 4.30pm local time to midnight.
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Bezos wedding protests explained
The couple will exchange their vows on Friday, on the small island of San Giorgio, opposite St Mark’s Square.
Another party will follow on Saturday – the venue for which was changed at the last-minute earlier this week.
Entertainment
Denis Villeneuve: Director of next James Bond film announced – and says he’s a ‘diehard 007 fan’
The director of the next James Bond film has been announced.
Denis Villeneuve – a four-time Academy Award nominee who earned critical acclaim for the Dune Franchise and Blade Runner 2049 – said the role is a “massive responsibility”.
The Canadian filmmaker described himself as a “diehard” fan since childhood, adding that it is a “huge honour” to come on board.
“Some of my earliest movie-going memories are connected to 007. I grew up watching James Bond films with my father, ever since Dr No with Sean Connery,” Villeneuve said.
Sean Connery as James Bond. Pic: The Legacy Collection/THA/Shutterstock 1963
Reassuring fans, the director continued: “To me, he’s sacred territory. I intend to honour the tradition and open the path for many new missions to come.”
His appointment comes as the British spy franchise experiences a major overhaul, with Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson handing over creative control to Amazon MGM Studios.
Daniel Craig as James Bond in Spectre. Pic: Columbia/Eon/Shutterstock
The Broccoli family have long been the force behind the Bond films, and now co-own the intellectual property.
Two recently appointed producers – Spider-Man’s Amy Pascal and Harry Potter’s David Heyman – said securing a director and developing a screenplay were top priorities before deciding who would succeed Daniel Craig in the role.
Read more entertainment news:
After Amazon takeover, what happens to James Bond?
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Denis Villeneuve. Pic: Reuters
The head of Amazon MGM Studios, Mike Hopkins, described Villeneuve as a “cinematic master whose filmography speaks for itself”.
He added: “Denis has delivered compelling worlds, dynamic visuals, complex characters, and – most importantly – the immersive storytelling that global audiences yearn to experience in theatres.
“James Bond is in the hands of one of today’s greatest filmmakers and we cannot wait to get started on 007’s next adventure.”
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