Andrea McLean has revealed that she once "fell apart" whilst being put through her paces on a gruelling reality TV show. The Loose Women star opened up to Laura Hamilton about the experience on yesterday's Mile Fly Club podcast (September 22) and explained how she demanded for the episode never to be shown to the public. In 2019, Andrea appeared on the celebrity version of SAS Who Dares Wins, but had to pull out of the physically demanding show due to hypothermia.
However, she also endured another traumatic experience, involving a mock kidnapping. Andrea had a hood pulled over her head and was transported to an unknown location via boat. Once she reached her destination, someone ripped the bag off her face and stared into her "soul" as if they "hated" her.
In that moment, she said they appeared to be like somebody else from her past who'd previously looked at her in a similar way. Andrea then explained she later "fell apart" during a "fighting part" of the experience, but this didn't go unnoticed by the show's directing staff (DS). Andrea said: "It was like feelings that just exploded out of me.
What's interesting...
when I look on the TV show now, I have no expression on my face. You would not know that's what's happening. "Then we, as part of the programme, there's a fighting part to it where you have to.
..and I fell apart during it and the DS saw that, and they hauled me in for interrogation and basically really intensely interrogated me over my reaction to what had happened.
"Now, what I ended up talking to them about, I made it really clear this is not for public viewing so they've been very good and they never showed it, but I explained what my situation had been. And to be fair to all of them, they were actually very kind and very supportive. "And my experience after that, whilst it was brutal, and it was tough, and I ended up getting hypothermia, and I had to leave the show, actually, they were incredibly kind and supportive to me whilst shouting, whilst screaming, whilst doing all the things.
" In the show, contestants must complete exhausting tasks styled after the extremely difficult SAS Selection test. In 2020, Andrea explained that she was confronted by former soldier Mark 'Billy' Billingham, who previously worked in the Parachute Regiment. When the bag was pulled off her head, Billy stared at her like he could "see into my soul" and "hated everything he saw".
The TV star said the experience forced her to confront things from her life she had previously "buried". In a conversation with Chris Evans on Virgin Radio, Andrea said: "It was because all of these experiences I had, I've done what so many of us do. I put them in a box and buried it in the garden.
" She went on to say that she'd put a "tree on top of that box" and it was no longer part of her life but to "have that happen" was "just so unexpected"..
