‘Perversely, it helped’: Australia’s Cheng Lei reveals confronting past experience prepared her for the ‘ultimate terror’ of prison

The Australian TV journalist locked up for years amid bogus espionage reveals she drew strength inside from her experience of surviving an ‘abusive, exploitative’ relationship.

The Australian TV journalist imprisoned for three years by China amid bogus espionage claims has told how her experience of surviving a toxic marriage became an unexpected source of resilience during her incarceration.

Eighteen months after her sensational release and homecoming, mother-of-two Cheng Lei is telling her full story in a memoir and documentary, revealing fascinating – and at times confronting – details of her ordeal and earlier life.

Among those, Lei discusses her two marriages: the first, when she was very young, to a “very staid” man with whom the self-described extrovert was “not a good fit”; then a rebound second marriage, in China, that became “abusive, exploitative, and toxic”.

Speaking on the I Catch Killers podcast with host and former detective Gary Jubelin, Lei said although that man was violent, “in a way, perversely, it helped (while in prison), because I used to think if I can be bashed so hard, belted by somebody who was supposed to love and care for me, who was the father of my kids, then strangers interrogating me and putting me through pain is not so hard to fathom.

‘Prepared me for the ultimate terror’ … Cheng Lei. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

“And if I can still later on see my ex-husband and talk to him about raising the kids and be cordial and calm, then why can’t I get through strangers hurting me?

“Everything that was terrible had prepared me for the ultimate terror.”

And the terror was real. Lei, who was brought up in near-poverty in rural China then as a teenager in Brisbane endured a horrific assault during a home invasion, tells of physical and mental anguish while in jail, separated from her kids back in Australia and uncertain of her fate, in conditions of deprivation.

In an exclusive first extract from Cheng Lei: A Memoir Of Freedom, syndicated across News Corp Australia newspapers today, Lei recounts her bewildering first interrogation, hearing the chilling words “hostage diplomacy” and how she couldn’t stop thinking of an acquaintance’s husband “who was beaten to death after twelve hours in similar detention”.

Humble but happy life … Cheng Lei aged three with her parents in Hunan, China. The family moved to Australia when she was ten.

Between interrogations she was held in solitary, watched 24/7 by guards in the cell with her: a system, she says, designed to “break” you.

And it almost did.

“People would tell you that I’m the ultimate life-lover, I love to live,” she says on the podcast. “But there came a moment when I wanted to die and I thought, how can I do it? The walls are soft … the only thing that was hard was the bathroom tiles. And when I’m on the toilet, the guards are watching. But I thought if I could just in that moment before they grabbed me, if I could smash my head against the tiles, that would be some sort of relief because I didn’t know if I would see my family again.”

Yet Lei’s story is far more about resilience than resignation, as the buoyant Melbourne-based journalist – now employed by Sky News Australia – underlines repeatedly in uplifting moments of joy and even humour.

Laughing away the horror with homebrew and more … I Catch Killers host Gary Jubelin.

In the extract she tells of “beauty and love in the ugliest, most hateful place” after she began illicitly communicating with a male prisoner via a secret code; of teaching her cellmates to sing in defiance of their situation; and of the first time she was allowed to speak to her children.

And in the two-part I Catch Killers interview she reveals her hacks for making prison life more bearable, amid much laughter with host Jubelin: from making illegal homebrew and birthday cakes to relieving sexual frustration and mastering yoga.

“Thanks to Covid, we were given some apples and we could buy sugar,” she says of making booze for her cellmate’s birthday.

“The first batch was all mouldy, but I scraped it off and, and drank it anyway because it just smelled so beautiful. And then we made a second batch.”

Cheng Lei: A Memoir of Freedomexclusive extract

Listen to Cheng Lei on I Catch Killers wherever you get your podcasts

Cheng Lei: A Memoir Of Freedom will be published by HarperCollins on Wednesday, June 4.

Cheng Lei: My Story will premiere on Sky News Australia at 7:30pm on Tuesday, June 3.

Resilience, joy and even humour … Cheng Lei’s forthcoming memoir.

Originally published as ‘Perversely, it helped’: Australia’s Cheng Lei reveals confronting past experience prepared her for the ‘ultimate terror’ of prison