Not many people can claim to have spent six years in a terrifying Peruvian prison, become a published author, and qualified to be a member of the SAS. But then not many people are like Michaella McCollum.
The convicted drug smuggler, who along with Melissa Reid was caught trying to sneak 12kg of cocaine into Peru, has turned her life around since her stint in the South American clink, training as a beauty technician and even getting a degree in Business Management.
The Daily Star takes you through the whole story: from exactly how a twenty year old from Northern Ireland became a cross-continent narcotics mule, to what she is up to today, and how she feels about the remarkable first three decades of her life.
From party girl to cocaine smuggler
Born in 1993 in Dungannon, Northern Ireland, biographies describe McCollum as the youngest of ten children, and having been raised by her mum after her ex-Army dad abandoned the family.
According to an interview with the Irish Independent, the would-be drugs mule describes living through a period of sectarian violence and hostility, detailing how she was forced to hide in her bedroom while union loyalists threw firebombs near her home.
At around 15, McCollum admits to falling into an unhealthy lifestyle, detailing how she would take drugs and visit nightclubs despite being underage. In the same interview, she detailed how the following year she entered into a horrifically abusive relationship with an older man who reportedly left her with a cracked jaw and four broken ribs following an especially violent episode.
Despite her horrendous experiences, McCollum was accepted into Belfast Metropolitan College to study photography, and also began modelling and working as a nightclub hostess on the side.
While the events leading up to her move to Ibiza are disputed, she made the move to the town of San Antonio on the Spanish island in 2013. In that same year, both she and her accomplice Reid would travel to Lima, Peru, where they were found with 12kg of cocaine, worth about £500,000 in terms of today’s reported street value.
At the time, the so-called Peru 2 claimed they had been pushed into doing it by an armed gang, although after her time in jail she has since told a different story.
According to McCollum, a ‘businessman’ she met at a party introduced her to a colleague, who offered her £5000 to bring a package from mainland Spain to Ibiza. McCollum, who was twenty at the time, says that her bosses would move the goalposts in terms of the journey she would be undertaking, switching her destination from Barcelona, to Majorca, to eventually Peru.
She admitted in an interview with the Irish Times that hat she had no clue where the country even was, saying: “I feel so stupid about that as well. I had heard of a few countries in South America, I’d heard of Colombia, Brazil, but I’d never heard of Peru. I didn’t know where it was.”
McCollum and Reid, who did not know each other before meeting at the airport, were arrested the moment they stepped of the plane and jailed. After a trial, the pair were sentenced to six years behind bars.
Jail time
McCollum was initially sent to Lima’s notoriously overcrowded and on occasion dangerous Virgen de Fátima prison.
She describes her experiences behind bars as horrendous, detailing bed-bug infestations and cockroaches crawling the floors and walls. Cellmates apparently attempted suicide, whilst she also reportedly witnessed another being attacked with a prison shank.
Despite the horrors, McCollum appears to have been driven to not let her years in the clink be a complete waste. She learnt Spanish, and even ran a beauty salon for other prisoners after being awarded special dispensation for good behaviour.
After 2 and a half years, McCollum was released and returned to the her native Ireland.
Back home
After returning home, McCollum featured on several documentaries about her time in the Peruvian jail, becoming something of a household name in the process.
She made several attempts at going through higher education, including taking a Spanish A-Level after learning the language behind bars.
In July 2023, ten years after her arrest, McCollum graduated from the University of Ulster with a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in Business Management, Marketing and Related Support Services.
She has also started a family, giving birth to twin boys in 2018 after entering into a short relationship. Speaking to the Irish Times, she said at the time: “I was in denial when I found out I was pregnant – ‘how did this even happen?’. And then I was even more shocked when I found out they were twins. My family were like ‘only you… everything extreme happens to you!”
A year later she published her own book, ‘You’ll Never See Daylight Again”, with reports two years before suggesting she had been offered £250,000 for the rights.
In 2025, she appeared on the seventh series of popular reality TV show Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins, becoming one of just three successful contestants that year.
She has also garnered an impressive 100k followers on Instagram, posting glamorous snaps of her enjoying stunning holidays around the world.