Levi Davis, a rugby union star who appeared on The X Factor: Celebrity in 2019 as part of the group Try Star, has been missing since 2022.
According to his mother, Julie, the athlete, 24 at the time of his disappearance, was last seen in Barcelona on October 29, 2022, at a pub, and she’s fearful his disappearance is related to a previous attack he suffered.
In a new interview with The Mirror, the mum of six opened up about how Levi had been ‘drug raped’ – with photographs and film from the incident being used as blackmail against him – around the time he was on X Factor.
Levi, who eventually posted on social media that he felt his life was in danger, had been chained to a chair with his feet in water, attached to electricity, according to his mum.
Julie said: ‘The blackmail video was a while before he went missing – around the time of X Factor. I think he innocently got drawn into something.’
Julie’s oldest son Nathan revealed the incident to his mother: ‘Levi had confided in Nathan that he had been drug raped and photographs had been taken and he was being blackmailed.
‘They told him, “We’ve got this on camera and we’re gonna do XYZ to your family if you don’t pay.”‘
Julie explained that she last heard from her son when he arrived in the Spanish city and phoned to tell her he had run out of money and needed £30 to spend the night in a hotel.
She later messaged Levi – who had played as a winger for Bath and appeared on The X Factor: Celebrity with fellow players Thom Evans and Ben Foden three years earlier – asking if he’d found the money for the hotel. She never heard from her son again.
She was later told that cruise ship workers had helped ‘someone in the water shouting for help in English’ shortly after Levi was last seen.
However, when the area of water was searched, nothing was found – all that was uncovered during the police investigation was Levi’s passport.
Levi was last seen on CCTV leaving The Old Irish Pub on La Rambla at around 10 pm on October 29, and bar staff later told authorities he had only had a couple of drinks.
He sent a WhatsApp message to a friend shortly after midnight before going dark, the Mirror reports.
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Julie continued to the publication: ‘Levi wanted to travel Europe because of his anterior cruciate ligament tear. He’d been in Ibiza for a couple of weeks to work on music, and he said he planned to stay at a hotel in Barcelona overnight before going to his next destination, which was left open. But he had run out of funding.’
The devastated mother has been left with unanswered questions, including uncertainty as to why her son’s phone last pinged by a port-side underground station. She was left with even more uncertainty when the Spanish police eventually sent her a 250-page report that she had to get translated to English herself.
Julie is now crowdfunding to be able to hire a solicitor to continue to work on her son’s case, saying, ‘As far as the UK police are concerned, we’ve just been totally forgotten.’
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West Midlands Police say of Levi’s case: ‘The investigation is being run by the Spanish authorities, and we are supporting it when required. Our thoughts remain with Levi’s family and we will continue to provide them with any updates from the Spanish authorities as their investigation continues.’
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