Why You Should NEVER Let Your Kids Go to Sleepovers… by the ‘Badass’ Former Bodyguard of THREE US Presidents

3 hours ago

0 28 5 minutes read

Why You Should NEVER Let Your Kids Go to Sleepovers… by the ‘Badass’ Former Bodyguard of THREE US Presidents

On the way to Evy Poumpouras, 47, the elite agent turned self-help guru, I’m honestly a little nervous. She sounds like the most badass person, let alone woman, I’ve ever encountered. She is a former US Secret Service employee who guarded three serving US presidents – Bill Clinton, George Bush Jr. and Barack Obama – and has also worked undercover by posing as victims of sex trafficking and coercing child molesters to confess. I thought I was pretty tough, but she’s actually made of granite.

She speaks Greek, French, Italian and Spanish and learned Arabic to work in the Service’s elite polygraph unit, where she interrogated criminals, terrorists and terrorist sympathizers. She won the Secret Service’s highest honor, the Valor Award, for rescuing civilians from the wreckage of September 11. She says she can spot a liar just by watching someone’s body language (telltale signs include curling hair, removing imaginary lint, and smoothing wrinkles in clothing).

She’s also successfully made the transition from White House bodyguard to life coach, writing a self-help book, Becoming Bulletproof, which teaches softies how to stand up to everyone from coworkers to murderers. She also runs an online course on BBC Maestro, a paid subscription service where for £120 a year you can listen to everything from Trinny Woodall informing you about what she has learned in the business world, to Isabel Allende on how to make stories magical or Brian Cox gives an acting masterclass.

I really want to impress Poumpouras. Another maxim of her secret service is:

“If you’re on time, you’re late.” That’s why I’m half an hour early at her hotel in London. She flew in from New York, where she

lives with her two-year-old daughter and recently retired cop husband Desmond O’Neill, 52. “That was professional of you,” nods Poumpouras, a graceful 6-foot-2 man with long blonde hair and angelic facial features.

I breathe a sigh of relief.

Raised on a public housing estate in New York, the daughter of a Greek immigrant builder and a hairdresser mother, her parents wanted her to follow a traditional path: doctor, lawyer. When she applied to the police academy “because I wanted meaningful work,” they were shocked. While she was training (and living with them), they refused to talk to her, although later, when they were able to tell friends that their daughter was working in the White House, they stopped by. “I’m grateful that I was firm enough not to give in to them.” She left the service twelve years ago and is now a professor of criminology at the City University of New York. She is also a TV pundit and appeared on NBC news in July to discuss the assassination attempt on Donald Trump by 20-year-old Thomas Crooks, who was shot and killed by officers.

So how can I be a girl boss like Poumpouras? First, she emphasizes: control your emotions – just as the world leaders she witnessed made seismic decisions. ‘They never raised their voices, they listened and were rational. Tough people don’t overexpose their emotions. They say less. Some of the smartest and deadliest people I know are also the quietest.”

In contrast, some of these leaders’ entourages were extremely aggressive. At a G20 summit, she had to prevent a Chinese official from entering the room where Obama was talking to Chinese President Xi Jinping. “He tried to push me aside, but it turned into a fight.” Which one did she win? ‘Yes.’

At work she advises: ‘Don’t try to appear tough and flex your muscles, as it were, because that only shows insecurity. When you are tough, you know who you are internally; you don’t have to wave that flag and say, “You have to respect me”; it’s about how you conduct yourself, and that comes from within you.’

What about personal safety? Recently, a clip went viral in which actress Saoirse Ronan on Graham Norton’s TV show listened to her fellow male guests, Paul Mescal and Denzel Washington, laugh disparagingly at Eddie Redmayne and describe how he learned to use a phone for self-defense while preparing on his role. in Sky Atlantic’s The Day of the Jackal. “That’s what girls have to think about all the time,” Ronan said, silencing the embarrassed men. Poumpouras nods approvingly.

Evy employed to protect President Obama, 2012

‘Everything is a weapon. Your phone. A beer mug. Women need every advantage they can find.” She always carries a metal pencil. “It’s super thin and it can go straight into the throat, into the eye.”

She doesn’t let her daughter have sleepovers (“I’ve handled enough child abuse cases… the world is filled with all kinds of people. And they don’t all have the same moral compass as you”). She also can’t stand people who identify as victims and claim their lack of success is due to race, gender or class. (“If you are easily offended, you are easily manipulated.”)

Her tips are terrifying: never use public Wi-Fi (criminals can get to your data); do not reveal your holiday plans to the taxi driver (they may tip off burglars or moonlight); make sure you have a ‘go bag’ to grab in case of an emergency.

Being tough sounds exhausting. As a cop, Poumpouras worked up to 16 hours a day on “high alert,” knowing that if necessary, she would “take a bullet” for her bosses. How did she deal with the constant adrenaline?

‘Officers have a neutrality mentality, because if you are emotional you don’t make good decisions. You don’t have high highs, so you don’t celebrate things too much, and you don’t have low lows, so you don’t plummet. That way, if something goes boom, you don’t panic, you say, “Okay, something went boom, how do I deal with it?”

If you are attacked, her advice is: ‘Drop all your inhibitions and be fierce. Claws, fights, scratches – and then runs. They might still win, but at least they’re limping back.” When it’s too late to run, she advises, “Shield. Remember how boxers always cover their faces. I’d rather get a knife blow on my arm than on my face. When you lie on the ground, use your thigh.’ Ideally, we would all practice a sport like boxing – or, in Poumpouras’ case, Brazilian jiu-jitsu. ‘The first time you are hit should never be on the street where someone wants to hurt you. If you’re used to being hit, you can think better when it happens unexpectedly.’

I leave Poumpouras promising to sign up for boxing classes and buy a sharp pencil. Most of all, I followed her last piece of advice: scare myself more.