Miquita Oliver, the television presenter, has revealed her first kiss was with the Islamic State militant “Jihadi George”.
The former Popworld co-host, 40, said she kissed Alexanda Kotey, a British-born member of the IS execution squad known as “the Beatles”, while they were schoolmates at Fox Primary School in Kensington, London.
She said on her Miss Me? podcast: “Do you remember who my first kiss is? It’s Alexy – mixed-race Alexy from Fox. And do you remember what happened to Alexy? He became Jihadi George!”
Kotey was part of a four-man IS group nicknamed ‘the Beatles’ – Syrian Democratic Forces/Reuters
The singer Lily Allen, who co-hosts the podcast and also attended the school, replied: “She does pick ’em. It is kind of crazy that your first kiss ended up there. That’s pretty mental.”
Kotey, 40, originally from Paddington, is thought to have worked as a drug dealer before converting to Islam in his early 20s and moving to Syria in 2012.
The so-called Beatles group he joined was behind the kidnap of at least 27 people, including aid workers and journalists who were later executed in IS propaganda videos. This included the beheadings of the British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning, and the Americans James Foley, Steven Sotloff and Peter Kassig.
Kotey was captured by the Syrian Democratic Forces in Jan 2018 while trying to escape to Turkey following the collapse of IS’s “caliphate”.
Kotey was handed eight life sentences in the United States in 2022 – Bill Hennessy/Reuters
He was handed eight life sentences in the United States in 2022 for his part in the torture and murder of American hostages.
He and his co-defendant El Shafee Elsheikh were prosecuted in the US following lengthy legal wrangling between the American and British governments after the UK said it could not prosecute them. Both have been stripped of their British citizenship, preventing their return to the UK.
Oliver gave no more details about her interaction with Kotey, saying: “It’s not my story to tell so let’s move on.”
After leaving the Kensington school, which also counts Hayley Atwell and Darcey Bussell as former students, she went on to co-host Channel 4’s pop show Popworld with Simon Amstell from 2001 to 2006.
Oliver, whose mother is the television chef Andi Oliver, has also presented on T4 and hosted shows on BBC Radio 1 and 1Xtra.
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