‘I Nearly Lost My F**king Life’: Idris Elba On Being Held At Gunpoint During A Dispute

Much like his Apple TV+ show “Hijack,” Idris Elba has revealed that, he too, once experienced a life-or-death situation of his own. 

During a recent interview with the Daily Mail, the British actor recalled the intense moment that he was held at gunpoint in the U.S. while trying to intervene in a dispute between a couple. 

“I nearly lost my fucking life after attempting to stop a man threatening his girlfriend outside a club,” Elba said. “A guy [was] wailing on his missus, screaming in her face, ‘I’ll fucking kill you,’ and so on. I come round and I go, ‘Look how beautiful she is. Why would you talk to this beautiful princess like that?’” 

Elba, 50, said things went left when the man pulled out a gun and “stuck it right in my face.” 

“You talking about my girl?” Elba recalled the man asking him. “He thought I was trying to hit on her.”

The “Luther” star didn’t detail what happened next or specify when the frightening event occurred, but admitted, “I remember thinking, ‘Don’t play negotiations like that… Consequences, man.’”

Back in 2018, the musician spoke up about violence toward women after his BBC show “Luther” was “rightly” criticized for primarily inflicting brutal acts on female characters. 

“We definitely got criticized as one of the biggest offenders of that earlier on in our seasons, and quite rightly so,” Elba, who was also an associate producer on the series, told Digital Spy at the time. 

He added: “It was very much of my voicing, but very much Neil [Cross, the writer]’s voicing as well, not to mention the BBC, wanting to even that out.”

“Hijack” is now streaming on AppleTV+.