A British mother who abandoned her husband and three children to be with a Kenyan Maasai warrior is now speaking out, decades later with deep regret.
Cheryl Thomasgood, now 65, swapped her quiet suburban life on the Isle of Wight for a manyatta in Samburu after falling for 6ft 2in Maasai dancer Daniel Lekimencho during a holiday at Bamburi Beach Hotel in Mombasa.
At the time, Cheryl was 34, married to her second husband Mike Mason, and raising three children. But all that changed within weeks of meeting Daniel, who was part of a cultural troupe performing for tourists.
“I thought I had found a spiritual soulmate,” Cheryl told Daily Mail Online. She quickly ended her marriage, flew back to Kenya, and moved in with her new love, trading a life of comfort for one of hardship, goat-skin beds, cow’s blood, and cabbage.
The bizarre romance made global headlines as Cheryl embraced a completely foreign lifestyle. The couple married and later returned to the UK with plans to raise their daughter, Mitsi, alongside Cheryl’s other children.
But life in the UK brought dramatic changes. Cheryl says her warrior husband’s simplicity and spirituality quickly vanished. “He became obsessed with money, possessions, and sending cash home,” she said. “It was like he turned into a different person.”
Arguments became frequent, and the couple divorced just a year after Mitsi was born. Cheryl now lives alone in a coastal town in Somerset, where her colourful past remains unknown to most neighbours.
Looking back, Cheryl says her biggest regret is the impact on her children.
While she has no contact with Daniel, Cheryl remains close to all her children and considers her daughter Mitsi “the one good thing” to come from the failed relationship.
“I was at a low point, and I thought Daniel could heal me,” she confessed. “But I was just running from my problems. It wasn’t love—it was escape.”
The once headline-grabbing romance that crossed continents and cultures is now a private story of regret, heartbreak, and lessons learned.