Sky, a leading media and entertainment company in Europe, has announced that it is producing a premium documentary series on a couchsurfing predator who sexually assaulted and raped several young women from different countries. The series, titled Bad Host: Hunting the Couchsurfing Predator, is based on the hit podcast Verified and is being produced in association with Scripps and global film and TV studio Fifth Season.
The story of Bad Host
Bad Host tells the story of how a group of remarkable young women, unbeknownst to each other, were all victims of a predator who lured them to stay with him using Couchsurfing, a website where travellers can find trustworthy hosts to put them up in their homes for free. The predator, who used the name ‘Leonardo’, was a serving Italian police officer with pages of positive reviews on his profile. He seemed the perfect host, generously showing them the sights, cooking for them and treating them to homemade Italian wine. But they left his apartment confused, disoriented, and haunted by sinister flashbacks.
Back home, some of the women tried to forget until they received an unexpected message online, from a stranger. That stranger was another of ‘Leonardo’s’ victims who, like many of the women, had tried to report him without any success. Gradually, it became clear to the women, all now connected in a secret Facebook group, that ‘Leonardo’ had sexually abused and raped at least five women and drugged at least 15. It emerged that he had also been accused of sexually assaulting a minor.
What started as a forum to share experiences became something different: a conversation about how to bring the perpetrator to justice, and a dynamic tale of bravery and tenacity against all the odds ensued.
The production team behind Bad Host
Bad Host is produced by Lightbox, a UK/US production company founded by Academy Award-winner Simon Chinn (Man on Wire, Searching for Sugar Man) and Emmy Award-winner Jonathan Chinn (LA 92, Tina). The series is directed by Lottie Gammon, the series producers are Joe John and Lydia Delmonte, the line producer is Samantha Tilyard, the production executive is Polly Allen and Suzanne Lavery, Simon Chinn and Jonathan Chinn are executive producers for Lightbox. The executive producers for Sky are Poppy Dixon and Hayley Reynolds and the executive producers for Scripps are Ellen Weiss, Susanne Reber and Peter Clowney.
The series will have exclusive access to many of the extraordinary group of women involved, who were in their teens and early 20s when they visited Italy. Bad Host will tell their story first hand and in all its rich and compelling detail.
The distribution and launch of Bad Host
Bad Host: Hunting the Couchsurfing Predator is being produced for Sky Documentaries, a channel dedicated to showcasing the best factual stories from award-winning filmmakers across the globe. Sky Documentaries is available on Sky TV in the UK and Ireland, as well as on streaming service NOW.
Fifth Season will handle worldwide distribution rights for Bad Host and will launch the series to buyers at MIPCOM 2023, an international market for content development and distribution. Fifth Season is a global film and TV studio that produces and distributes premium content across all platforms.
Sky Director of Documentaries Poppy Dixon said: “Lightbox are renowned for crafting compelling, noisy documentaries, with real purpose at their heart. Working hand in hand with the incredible women and journalists at the centre of this story, they have created a series which absolutely delivers on a victim-led true crime investigation, which will have audiences gripped throughout.”
