‘I almost died on Celebrity Bear Hunt – I thought Holly Willoughby was an angel’

To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video. Up Next. Netflix has thrown 12 celebrities into the Costa Rican rain forest with snakes, spiders, crocodiles and sharks for its deadly new show. What could possibly go wrong?. ‘I had a moment when I was playing chess with death on the beach,’ Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen nonchalantly tells Metro.

The disaster in question was during Holly Willoughby’s Netflix debut, Celebrity Bear Hunt, where an impressive calibre of stars from Boris Becker to Mel B endure gruelling challenges which go way above and beyond anything you’d see on I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! while being chased by unnervingly enthusiastic survival expert Bear Grylls. The celebs he catches are then sent to the ‘Bear Pit’, a particularly dangerous part of the rainforest where they have to sneakily find tools and an escape route while evading Grylls and various wild beasts.

It’s surprisingly great entertainment, even if taking part almost claimed the lives of its star-studded cast. At one point, Laurence was hooked up to oxygen and thought ‘this is the end’ after almost drowning during a challenge in shark-infested water. Almost a year on, Laurence is admirably unruffled about the whole thing as if it compares to a teapot disaster in Changing Rooms. He jests: ‘I was struck by what a lovely shade my lips had gone, bluey grey. I might bring that out in a wallpaper.’.

‘It was a really, really weird thing, because, yes, I could tell that I was quite close to not existing but I didn’t feel panicked about it,’ he says. ‘That’s entirely down to Bear and Team Bear, who are this extraordinary collection of pirates – these sort of ex-SAS guys who’ve all had their teeth done. They’re all in camouflage, you can’t see them, and then there’s this slit of Simon Cowell.

‘I had a dodgy moment with Holly though, because there was a point where I blacked out and I came to and all I could see was this beatific blonde. Ok it’s happened!’. His co-stars, who watched on in horror, were less blasé. Mel B gasps: ‘He drowned!’. Naturally, the mood shifted among the rest of the cast from there on in. ‘It made us really feel like, “this is for real.” I know that we have medics and people on standby, but anything can go wrong – anything can happen,’ says Mel.

Rugby ace Danny Cipriani explains: ‘We felt safe doing what we were doing but then slowly but surely things began to get a bit skew-whiff. I was walking down because I was doing a different part afterwards and I just saw all these people around Lawrence with a mask on.’. When I ask Holly how it felt helplessly watching on as the cast wailed in pain or trauma, she admits: ‘I hate it. I don’t like it at all – nobody does. But I guess that’s the nature of these types of things, isn’t it?’.

‘Holly goes into mum mode which is very helpful in those situations,’ says Bear. ‘But I do say from the start, “this is a dynamic, difficult environment and stuff is going to happen. You will be alive, but I can’t guarantee you’re not going to have a few scrapes and bumps along the way”.’. Laurence isn’t the only star to suffer a few ‘bumps along the way’. Steph McGovern falls from a great height, landing with an almighty crunch.

‘I was a bit woozy, I thought I was gonna be sick and all that. But you know what was amazing in that moment, the medical team were just so reassuring’ she says. ‘Holly did this really lovely thing where she was kind of out of shot, but she just went to me, “It’s alright if you want to cry.” So then I just went, “Thank you!” and started crying.’. Boris injured his knee just moments into filming, eventually needing surgery.

He says: ‘As a competitor, I have this urge of trying to win the competition so when I slip with my knee, being an athlete, I know my bod and I knew it was not just this little slip but that it something was serious. ‘I was spiking my teeth to stay in there as long as I could. I mean, I’m not going to give it away what has happened after but it was a difficult moment.’. Celebrity Bear Hunt is available to stream on Netflix now.

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