Chloe Ayling will do page three shoot just days after she said she was kidnapped, says friend

Chloe Ayling is preparing for a page three shoot, just days after she said she was kidnapped, according to a close friend.

Ms Ayling has said that she thought she was going for a modelling shoot when she flew to Italy in early July. But instead she was attacked and kidnapped, held by six days by a mysterious group called "Black Death", before being let go because she was a mother, police have said.

Now model and agent Carla Belluci, who BBC journalist Victoria Derbyshire described as a close friend, says that Ms Ayling is already preparing to get back into shooting.

She also addressed the increasing suggestions that there may be more going on in the case than has been made public. Questions have arisen over why Ms Ayling reportedly went shoe shopping with her captor, and police have claimed that he is a "fantasist".

Presenter Victoria Derbyshire asked Ms Bellucci what she thought of suggestions that "something about the story doesn't add up, that it feels a bit fishy".

"That's such a hard one, Chloe being a friend of mine," Ms Bellucci, who has known Chloe for five years, said. "I just think Chloe is a good girl, a little bit naive – could she be misled? I just don't want to say to be honest.

"If anything happened like that, I would say she was misled."

She went on to say that Ms Ayling was preparing for a page three shoot for a newspaper today. She didn't name the newspaper and The Sun, which has the most prominent page three brand, has not announced that it is conducting such a shoot.

Asked what she thought of that, Ms Bellucci said that it might be "her way of copying" with what had happened.

"Each to their own – maybe it's her way of coping – and to just get back out there," she said in her first interview since the attack, after having spoken to Ms Ayling over the weekend.

"For me, I wouldn't – I think that would be the last thing on my mind. She has her reasons, and maybe it's her way fo dealing with what's happened to her – to get back out there, maybe it's her way of coping."

Ms Bellucci, who now runs her own modelling agency, said that she had spoken to Chloe at length since the attack but that she couldn't say much about what had gone on because she was still being debriefed by authorities. She said that Ms Ayling was relatively calm when they spoke but that she had time since the attack – which happened in mid-July – to gather herself.

"Chloe seems to be strong, she's doing well considering what's happened to her," she said.

"I wouldn't say she's the wisest of girls, she can be a bit naive, she's young. But I think she's had a few weeks to get used to this. For us it's new but for her she's had a few weeks to get used to it."

Asked whether she thought that naivety might have led her to get caught up in the kidnapping, Ms Bellucci said that she was.

"I would say she's naive, to get herself into that position," she said.

Ms Bellucci also addressed questions about why Ms Ayling had stayed in the country for so long after the attack. She was found at the British consulate on 16 July, but didn't arrive back in the UK until last weekend.

Ms Ayling's agent, Phil Green, said that she had been "detained" in the country by having her passport taken away, and that she had been assisting with the police's work in the meantime.

"She told me the reason she stayed in Italy was she had to stay in Italy whilst the investigation was going on, she had to remain in the country," Ms Bellucci said.