For Gareth Gates, the toughest moment of the recent reality show Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins wasn’t dealing with CS gas, or stress holds, or even sharing a dorm with Matt Hancock; it happened in an interview room. Gates has had a lifelong stammer, and speaking in a stressful situation was about as hard as it gets. “When I was stretched in every way, physically drained and exhausted, to then have to talk, which is my hardest thing in life, was tough,” he says. “And I was unearthing trauma and exposing scars I hadn’t spoken about before.”
In the show, which puts contestants through SAS training, Gates broke down, berating himself as he did (“I said I wouldn’t do this”). He talked haltingly, between tears, about being bullied at school – sometimes he was held down and physically attacked, hearing boys shouting: “Let’s beat the words out of him.” After the show finished, the contestants were offered therapy sessions: “I absolutely took it. I definitely needed it – I’d tapped into areas I hadn’t been to for many years.”
