Rachel Johnson, sister of former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, revealed she joined TV’s toughest celebrity show for a “wild” experience that suits her “rugged” personality.
Unfazed by the gruelling ordeal of Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins, the 59-year-old journalist and broadcaster is no stranger to public scrutiny and abuse.
She recounted an incident where she was verbally assaulted while grocery shopping and another time at a concert. Ahead of her appearance on the challenging Channel 4 show, which kicked off on Sunday night, she said: “You can’t control what people say about you or think about you.”
She recalled: “That’s why when somebody called me a **** to my face in Sainsbury’s, I was like ‘that’s not right, that’s so mean’. They didn’t give me time to react because they just pushed on past me but, you know, it’s kind of a jungle out there.”
She added: “People think that if you’re remotely in the public eye or you’re related to someone who is, then you’re a target. It does affect you a bit.”
She continued: “If you go to a Rolling Stones’ concert and somebody shouts at you, which is what happened to me at the British Summer Time show a couple of years ago, about your family or your brother or you know, it’s like ‘go away, I’m trying to have a night off’,” reports the Express.
She concluded: “But you can’t be one of those people who does TV in the hopes that people will see you and suddenly like you. Life is not like that.”
Celebrity SAS is renowned for its rigorous contestant challenges. John Barrowman made a swift exit just two hours into the new series, which features celebrities like Bianca Gascoigne and Marnie Simpson. This year, Pete Wicks was medically evacuated from a mountain while participating in the programme.
LBC radio host Ms Johnson shared her reasons for joining the show: “I’m a really claustrophobic person so it seemed so outdoorsy and wild, and I was attracted to it. I’m quite a rugged person but I’m not nearly as rugged as I had to be.”
Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins continues on Channel 4 on Monday at 9pm