Survivalist Bear Grylls has abseiled down a London building to get to the premiere of his Netflix reality TV series.
The 50-year-old television personality and former SAS soldier hunts down celebrities – including Spice Girl Melanie Brown, Strictly Come Dancing judge Shirley Ballas, and former tennis player Boris Becker – in new show Celebrity Bear Hunt, presented by Holly Willoughby.
On Tuesday, Grylls abseiled with a rope system to the jungle-set show’s red carpet, which included him kicking a poster for the TV series to allow him the space to get down to the ground.
After arriving to the Odeon Luxe West End in Leicester Square in relaxed clothing and his harness still attached, he soon posed with Willoughby who was wearing a simple and stylish, well-fitting black dress.
The cinema’s building, which reopened in 2021 as part of a £300 million development of The Londoner Hotel, has 16 storeys, according to its website.
On the red carpet, Grylls said there is a “real energy around” the show.
He also said: “It’s a fun show, because you can explain it in one sentence, 12 celebrities, 18 days, track them down, hunt them down.”
Grylls also said it is great “seeing unlikely people” take part.
He added: “Even someone like, I know Shirley… she arrived really nervous at the start, she’s older, and she’s never done anything like this, but you can’t reach the top to be a professional dancer like that without having a streak of steel and so much of life, so much of the jungle is about confidence.”
In his various programmes, Grylls regularly abseils and has taught many celebrities including former England manager Gareth Southgate to descend from heights.
Celebrity Bear Hunt sees famous faces dropped into the jungle of Costa Rica to become “prey” for Grylls as the celebrities face challenges each week until they’re eliminated with one being declared the winner.
The 12 contestants also include retired rugby player Danny Cipriani, TV host Steph McGovern, TV cook Big Zuu, model Lottie Moss, The Saturdays star Una Healy and The Inbetweeners actor Joe Thomas.
Irish singer Healy said: “(Changing Rooms star) Laurence (Llewelyn-Bowen) actually had an incident on a boat where he was like underwater for quite some time, and he lost a lot of oxygen, so he was put on oxygen, and he actually almost died.
“Steph also had a really unfortunate incident where she fell down off the side of a cliff and bashed into it. There was a lot of things you have to watch it to see, though, but like, we really did hurt ourselves.”
Llewelyn-Bowen said he got the “water of my lungs”, and the “whole thing for everybody, all of those challenges were genuinely very, very physically challenging”.
McGovern, who attended the premiere with her arm in a sling due to a fall on the ice outside her home last month, called her injury on the show “a badge of honour”.
She said she was bruised, which she described as a “paw print on my leg at one point from where” Grylls landed on her, all over.
The Middlesbrough star added: “I genuinely wanted to impress him (Bear), and like, never before have I been bothered about impressing a man who went to Eton, and for some reason I became obsessed with impressing him.”
Brown wore a mini-skirt and patterned top with a hat, while Moss went for an all-white dress on the red carpet.
Celebrity Bear Hunt is on Netflix from February 5.
