Where do you even start?
Scott and Chris arrived on Wednesday still trying to process the previous night. One day earlier, Scott had been talking on air about his new reality-TV obsession Meet the Russians. Then Kamaliya had sent him a direct message and invited them out.
By the next afternoon, Scott had billionaire Mohammad Zahoor’s phone number, Chris had pockets full of promotional chewing gum and body spray, and both had enough stories to fill most of the programme.
Scott compared the experience to briefly stepping inside the television show. After his X Factor Serbia weekend, it was the second time in a fortnight that an on-air fascination had somehow turned into a completely real night out.
A billionaire goes to the 99p store
Kamaliya and Zahoor collected them from Radio 1 in a chauffeur-driven Mercedes van with leather seats, tinted windows and screens. Scott and Chris immediately realised they had brought nothing for the party they were attending.
They asked to make a quick stop and chose somewhere their hosts were unlikely to know: a 99p store.
The shopping trip became a collision between two completely different worlds. Scott and Chris filled bags with party supplies and assorted cheap gifts while Kamaliya and Zahoor explored the shop. The bill somehow reached £56, then one of the payment cards was declined, leaving Scott joking that he had nearly been required to “bail out the Russians”.
Nobody involved was remotely embarrassed. The absurdity only increased when the group returned to the luxury van carrying armfuls of 99p shopping bags.
The biggest hotel suite they had ever seen
Their hosts then took them to a huge London hotel penthouse, described to Scott as one of the largest suites in Europe. It dwarfed anything he or Chris expected: vast rooms, multiple television screens and staff moving around a space that felt more like a private residence than a hotel room.
There was food, champagne and increasingly strong drinks, including vodka that explained some of Wednesday’s slightly delicate broadcasting. Scott was fascinated by stories of how wealth changed everyday life, including Zahoor describing ways of navigating traffic in Kyiv that were far removed from anything Scott recognised.
By the end of the night, Scott had Zahoor’s number and Ferne Cotton had apparently made progress towards an invitation to a yacht. Chris strongly advised Scott not to send any enthusiastic next-day texts until everybody had recovered.
Chris makes Scott a dating profile
Away from the Russians, the show discussed a dating app and Chris imagined what Scott’s profile would look like if he were forced onto it. Scott was not impressed by his friend’s choices, which naturally made Chris more convinced he had captured him accurately.
Rhianna Dhillon joined for Real or No Real, but the afternoon kept circling back to the previous night. Even after several long retellings, they still had not exhausted it.
The best evidence was still to come. A video of their shopping trip and penthouse visit was being edited for the following day’s show.
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