Simon Newton Celebrity Bodyguard Interview

Simon Newton’s years of experience as a bodyguard for A-list celebrities like Bella Hadid and Rita Ora give him a unique insight into the behind-the-scenes lives of some of the most famous (and busy) people on the planet.

Now an actor and the owner of a private security company in London, Newton talked to BuzzFeed about his path to becoming a celebrity bodyguard, his day-to-day life while on the job, and whether getting around on private jets is really all it’s cracked up to be. Here are 17 facts, stories, and pieces of bodyguard wisdom from our conversation.

1.

Before he started working as a bodyguard, Newton served in the British military. He called this a “natural progression” that is not uncommon in the private security business. Said Newton, “A lot of bodyguards are ex-military or ex-police, so it wasn’t an unusual thing to go into after being in the military.”

While he was still in the Army, Newton had a conversation with a friend whom he’d met while serving; the friend had left the military and was working in private security. He suggested that Newton do the same, because “conditions and money and everything else was a lot better.” Newton explained, “I never really had a CV or anything like that; I’d only ever been in the Army, so he put my CV together with all my military history and other bits and pieces on it.” That CV got Newton a job offer, and he left the military to accept it.

2.

After working in private security in the Middle East, as well as in maritime security, Newton returned to London to work as a bodyguard for high-profile celebrities and other public figures. This transition, he said, “didn’t really bother me too much.”

“There’s a lot of different levels of being a bodyguard. Some will only work in the country that maybe they live in; some will only work in maybe, like, the Middle East, or hostile environments, and they don’t really work at home. Some, like myself, were kind of an all-rounder, and I was lucky enough to have the sort of skills and experience to be able to cover every sort of avenue, or everything that a bodyguard could be involved in. So I really took advantage of that, of trying to do everything there was to offer in the private security world.”

He went on, “One day, I could be on a ship in the Gulf of Aden, and then the next day, I could be waiting at Heathrow Airport in London for, you know, one of the models to turn up.” Whether he was at home or abroad, protecting ships or A-listers, Newton said, “I think everything was just a day’s work for me, regardless of where I was, it was just a day’s work. It’s just what I enjoyed doing.”

3.

When Newton was looking after VIPs like Bella Hadid, extremely long days spent in a series of exclusive locations were the norm. Newton explained, “Most of the time, [celebrities] come here for work. They didn’t really come much for sort of just a social visit, so we always had…things on the agenda, quite often for London Fashion Week.”

During Fashion Week, the models might have a dress fitting and a runway rehearsal, followed by the shows themselves and, “not always but sometimes,” events where they “had to turn up to show face for a couple hours in the evening.”

Said Newton, “It wasn’t so bad for them, but for me, it was always a very long day, because I used to have to get up at like five or six in the morning, and I wouldn’t go to bed until maybe three or four the next morning. You wake up before they wake up, and you go to sleep after they go to sleep, so whatever that might mean. But obviously, in between that, if they go and have four hours’ nap in the afternoon, we’ve got stuff to do still. We’re still working, so it’s always long days with people like that.”

4.

The longest day Newton ever had on the job was a whopping 22 hours.

When a client landed at the airport around 8:30 a.m.,…