Hairdresser who left hubby & 3 kids for toyboy Masai warrior after Kenya holiday reveals how story ended

The Sun

15-06-2025

A WOMAN who left her husband and three children for a Masai warrior "holiday husband" has revealed the regret she feels over her bizarre love affair.
Decades after swapping her comfortable, suburban life on the Isle of Wight for a remote region of Kenya, Cheryl Thomasgood has spoken out on her disastrous marriage to a tribal Kenyan warrior.
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She explained how she felt she was used as a "meal ticket" by Masai warrior Daniel Lekimencho who she met at the Bamburi Beach Hotel in Mombasa, Kenya.
Cheryl was just 34 when she became besotted with the tribesman who travelled to her hotel as part of a group that performed traditional Masai dancing for tourists.
Within weeks of meeting the hunky warrior Cheryl had dumped her second husband, Mike Mason, and their three children to be with her new tribal toy boy.
The 6ft 2-inch-tall Kenyan warrior was ten years younger than Cheryl when they met and struck up an intimate relationship.
Shortly after meeting the dashing warrior Cheryl flew home briefly to tell her husband Mike that their marriage was over before jetting back to the Samburu region of Kenya to live with her new man.
Cheryl and her new partner made headlines across the globe with people left gobsmacked at her decision to abandon the comfortable middle-class life for a new home and partner in rural Kenya.
Cheryl's life now consisted of helping the warrior cook, clean and hunt, sleeping on goatskin and surviving on a diet of cow's blood and cabbage in a mud hut.
Cheryl and Daniel eventually decided to leave the hardships of life in remote Kenya behind and planned to have children in the UK.
The bizarre pair returned to the Isle of Wight in 1995 and married on Valentine's Day, both wore traditional Masai clothing to the ceremony.
Their marriage produced a daughter, Mitsi, who is now 27-years-old, before it came to an abrupt end.
Cheryl has spoken out for the first time, more than 30 years later, after the couple's relationship fell apart when her spiritual husband became obsessed with wealth.
She describes feeling used as a "meal ticket" in an emotional interview with the MailOnline.
Having reached an age where she wants to reflect on her life Cheryl chose to speak out about her "tormented" relationship with Masai warrior Daniel.
She said: "I made a huge mistake, it was very wrong of me, and I have a lot of regrets, especially about how it damaged my children."
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Cheryl split with Daniel in 1999 just four years after they were married and one year after their daughter was born.
Now, 65-year-old Cheryl lives alone in a seaside town in Somerset where she is well known among the local community.
She has kept her controversial past hidden from the community with none of her friends aware of the bizarre relationship she once had with the Masai warrior.
Cheryl has been doing a lot of thinking about her relationship and the damage it caused her and her family.
She explained how her and her Masai lover became inseparable after meeting and would often discuss the Masai way of life, culture and focus on spiritual over material wealth.
But Cheryl has now told how shortly after arriving in the UK Daniel became obsessed with material things and money.
The odd couple lived in Newport on the Isle of Wight with Cheryl's three children after coming to the UK.
Cheryl explained that Daniel quickly changed his outlook on life, becoming ever more obsessed with money and material gain, she described her warrior husband becoming a different person inf ront of her eyes.
Cheryl believed she had met and married a spiritual warrior but described Daniel turning into more of a Victor Meldrew type character later in their relationship.
She detailed how Daniel quickly became moody and miserable over the couples lot in life, wanting more money and more possessions, changed by life in the UK.
The couple began to argue often with Cheryl seeing Daniel's spiritualism evaporating before the lure of middle-class living.
Daniel reportedly began wanting for a bigger home, designer gear and cash to send home to Kenyan relatives.
Cheryl recalled the only time Daniel being happy was when the Kenyan warrior was jumping around in the garden doing his traditional Masai dance.
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She added: "He would say that he was getting ready for battle and wanted to jump as high as an elephant. The kids loved it, but it got on my nerves after a while."
Cheryl began to question Daniel's motives in being with her after witnessing his transformation and new obsession with material wealth.
Cheryl doubted that Daniel loved her and felt as if she had been used by the Masai warrior for material gain, beginning to think Daniel saw her as an escape route from his tribal life in Kenya.
Her doubts set in soon after the pair married in the UK but she chose to stick out their relationship to prove to the people who doubted them that it could work.
Trying to pinpoint what went wrong in the peculiar relationship Cheryl blamed a slew of drastic cultural differences between her and her husband.
She reportedly felt that adjusting to life in the UK was too tough for Daniel and his struggles assimilating, combined with the pressure on the pair to make their relationship work, led to the eventual end of their marriage.
Cheryl admitted that she suffered sexual abuse as a young girl and spoke about the harrowing difficulties she faced growing up in a dysfunctional London household with alcoholic parents, she was reportedly contemplating suicide at the time she met Daniel.
She revealed how she was urged to go on her Kenyan holiday by a friend who was in the same church choir as her, the pair went on the holiday that would change her life forever together.
When Cheryl went to Kenya she was at a low point in her life she said, suffering with childhood trauma and stuck in an unhappy marriage to her second husband Mike.
She had seen Daniel was an answer to her problems, believing he could help her heal and find peace through spirituality.
Cheryl now admits that her love affair with the Masai warrior was just an escape from her problems and not an answer to them.
Asked about what she regrets the most about her time with her warrior toy boy, Cheryl said: "The impact all this had on my children. Having a Masai warrior as a father was not easy for them. Daniel was trying his best, but he could never understand the Western ways and couldn't be the dad that they needed."
Cheryl said that her children had missed out on having a proper father figure in their lives because of her relationship with Daniel and the break down of her first two marriages.
Despite having no contact with Daniel Cheryl maintains that she still has good relationships with all of her children, referring to her daughter Mitsi as "the one good thing" to come out of her and Daniel's strange and difficult marriage.
Her eldest son Steve is now aged 43 while his brother Tommy is 41, her daughter Chloe is aged 34 and Mitsi is 27.
Cheryl insists that she loves her new quiet life and has zero intention of marrying again following a hattrick of "disasters."
Following the pairs disastrous marriage and eventual split Masai warrior Daniel remained on the Isle of Wight where he now works in a supermarket.
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