Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins star Jack Joseph has opened up about a terrifying health battle that saw him spend nine months in hospital and his parents checking hourly if he was still alive
Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins participant Jack Joseph has opened up about a terrifying health scare that had his parents watching over him “every single hour” due to concerns he might not make it through the night.
The 25-year-old social media star is one of 14 famous faces taking part in the Channel 4 reality show, which subjects celebrities to intense SAS training under the watchful eyes of Billy Billingham MBE, Jason Fox, Rudy Reyes and Chris Oliver.
This year’s series – made up of eight hour-long episodes – sees British celebs go head-to-head with their Australian counterparts, with ex-Love Island favourites Dani Dyer and Gabby Allen, social media personality Cole Anderson-James and MAFS Australia’s Jessika Power among those competing.
In tonight’s premiere episode (January 4), Jack shared a chilling health incident that motivated him to sign up for the show. The star, who comes from a family with a keen interest in fitness, revealed that he took a legal steroid at the tender age of 19, leading to disastrous effects on his body, reports the Express.
He confessed on the show: “I went to a bodybuilding gym and I hear a lot of talk of this supplement which is like a legal steroid so I bought this supplement from a website and after six weeks I had liver failure. I went all yellow, pupils all yellow, my brain completely went south.
“It’s a hard thing to describe. I had to go into hospital every day for about nine or 10 months to give blood everyday and I had to be under supervision.
“So the way you pass away with liver failure is, I was told, that you just go to bed at night and you don’t wake up.” He remembered: “It was hard because every night, every single hour, my parents came in my room to check if I was dead, basically.
“That broke my heart. It’s hard to see your parents with that kind of emotional weight when you know you’ve caused it.
“Since then I’m quite an anxious person and that’s why I came on this course. I hide my emotions a lot.”
Channel 4’s description for the programme explains: “The celebrities will have no entourage, agents, filters or social media followers to rescue them. Instead, they’ll face sweat, physical endurance, sand, tears and the truth they’ve been avoiding – all in the blistering North African heat.
“The DS don’t care how famous the recruits are, how many social media followers they have or what they have done before this. As soon as they enter the selection process, their celebrity status and luxuries are stripped away and there will be no room for mistakes.”
You can catch the latest episode of Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins on Channel 4’s streaming platform.
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