With just five months to plan a wedding, Meghan Markle no doubt already has her hands full with choosing a dress, approving table plans and picking flowers.
However, the bride-to-be has another very important task to tick off before her big day – undergoing week-long hostage training from the British Special Air Service, according to TMZ.
The site also reports that Meghan, who is now in LA visiting her mother Doria Ragland, has enlisted the services of Matt Fiddes, Michael Jackson’s former bodyguard, to teach her self-defence.
Scott Jones, director of the London-based security firm Garvian told the site that Meghan, 36, is likely to learn skills including escaping restraints such as cable ties or duct tape.
She’ll also be taught how to transmit a distress signal by mastering ‘micro-expressions, key words and other signals’ that show she’s being held against her will if her captors force her to make a video.
Her husband-to-be may be a combat veteran, but a source who served in the British Army told the site that Meghan’s training would be focused on how to facilitate a rescue rather than anything involving weapons.
Part of Meghan Markle’s wedding preparations will include a week-long hostage training course, according to TMZ
Prince Harry is combat trained but his wife-to-be’s training is not likely to involve weapons and will be focused on escape and rescue
Michael Jackson’s former bodyguard Matt Fiddes (centre) has a black belt in karate and owns a chain of martial arts schools
The actress will follow in the footsteps of Princess Diana who underwent their training at a Special Air Service base in Hereford.
Ahead of her 2011 wedding to Prince William the Duchess of Cambridge also reportedly underwent SAS training amid fears her news status would make her a high value target for kidnappers.
Sources at the time said the course would be ‘very tough’ and that Kate would learn survival skills including how to react when attacked and how to build a relationship in the event of a hostage situation.
She was also taught how to become more aware of anything ‘unusual’ in routine situations, driving under pressure and passing on coded messages.
WHO IS TRAINER MATT FIDDES?
Matt Fiddes, 37, from Wiltshire holds a black belt in karate and began martial arts at the age of seven.
He now runs a chain of 700 martial arts schools, worth an estimated £30 million, and was a millionaire by the time he was 21.
He advised Kim Kardashian on how to keep safe after the Paris robbery incident and was a one-time friend and bodyguard to Michael Jackson after being introduced by mutual friend Uri Geller.
In 2010 he even alleged that he could be the father of Jackson’s son Blanket, whose real name is Prince Michael II.
He claimed he gave the star a sperm donation in 2001 after Jackson told him he wanted an ‘athletic’ child – a year before Blanket was born.
Recently the father-of-four appeared on Channel 5’s Rich House Poor House, swapping lives with a family who eke out a £40-a-week budget to feed a family of four,
Meghan has reportedly hired celebrity trainer Matt Fiddes (pictured with his wife and two of his children at hom e in Wiltshire) to teach her self-defence
The training, taught by members of the SAS, MI5 officers or Scotland Yard’s protection squad, has been given in the past to other Royals, including the Queen, Prince Charles, the late Diana, Princess of Wales, and the Duke of Cambridge, as well as many politicians and others in the public eye deemed to be at risk.
The Duke underwent the harsh training in 1998 when he was just 16 years old, when he was taught at the SAS base in Hereford how to fire a submachine gun.
The 16-year-old Prince was also bundled into a car in a mock kidnap to teach him how to react in an ambush situation.
When the William’s late mother took part in an SAS training course, her hair was singed by sparks from a flash bomb.
The bride-to-be will undergo the same hostage training as the Duchess of Cambridge and Princess Diana