Bear Grylls explains why he slept inside a camel
Bear Grylls arrived for Legends Week with Scott keen to test whether he felt as legendary in ordinary life as he did on television. Bear said he did not, particularly when he returned home with muddy kit and faced family life. He explained that his programmes had reached an estimated 1.2 billion people, although he still approached filming as if he were simply explaining what he was doing to his cameraman, Simon.
The discussion moved to Bear’s family base on a small island off the north Welsh coast, where there was an unmanned lighthouse, thousands of seabirds and no mobile signal. He balanced the island with time in London and Los Angeles, describing it as a slightly wet and windy adventure rather than a glamorous retreat. Scott’s flatmate had apparently known this fact already and was deeply disappointed not to be allowed into the studio to meet him.
Bear confirmed the camel story that had fascinated Scott’s flatmate. In the Sahara, he had recreated the survival technique of a tribesman who had sheltered in a camel’s carcass after a sandstorm. Bear spent the night inside one while taking anti-malaria tablets that gave him vivid dreams, and remembered waking with the camel’s whiskers and eye close to his face. His assessment was blunt: it had been “a low night”.
He also described being bitten by a snake after pulling it from a tree, then eating it for dinner once he knew it was not venomous. Bear stressed that the team was careful, with medical equipment, anti-venom, satellite communication and experienced crew nearby, even if the finished programmes naturally focused on the high-risk scenes. He credited those crew members as the unsung heroes who carried kit and filmed while he was in front of the camera.
Scott asked about reality television, bad food and survival skills. Bear wanted to avoid Dancing on Ice and I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!, saying he preferred the real challenges of his own work, and recalled taking Jake Gyllenhaal through violent Icelandic storms for an adventure episode. He also discussed the least appetising delicacies he had tried, the value of improvisation, and his book Mud, Sweat and Tears, which traced the scrapes, expeditions and setbacks that eventually led to Born Survivor.
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