Frightened Westenra hires bodyguard to block stalkers

Hayley Westenra

New Zealand singing star Hayley Westenra has hired a bodyguard after being scared by stalkers.

One man tried to grab the 19-year-old as she walked off stage after a performance in Berlin last week.

"This has really unnerved me, it's put me on edge," the soprano told the British newspaper the Sunday Express.

"I've spent my whole life on stage and I feel safe up there; it's the one place that is really my space. "

Westenra's parents said last night that they were concerned, but confident their daughter's team would keep her safe.

"She's in good hands and she hasn't let it get to her," said her father, Gerald. "There's always potential they could be dangerous, but she just saw [the man in Berlin] as a very enthusiastic fan."

Her bodyguard has a black belt in tae kwon do and has worked for such celebrities as Victoria Beckham and Mariah Carey.

Westenra's mother, Jill, said the Berlin incident followed the antics of a German fan, who got into her daughter's birthday bash on a forged invitation. Guards escorted the man out, but he turned up during a rehearsal for a Westenra show last December.

"He was blessing everybody, and then he started chanting," said Mrs Westenra, who was with her daughter in Britain at the time.

"He wouldn't leave so they called the police and he was taken quite a distance from the venue and dropped off. But he came back, so police put him in a cell for the night and then deported him.

"They thought he was too strange, too scary and too persistent."

The man had also posted Westenra sexually inappropriate mail - some of which he sent to her home in Christchurch. Her family and management intercepted it.

Westenra told the Sunday Express that she knew she was getting obscene letters, but her new bodyguard meant she didn't have to worry.

"I have my security guy with me now ... I feel a bit like Beyonce walking round with him following me all the time."