Boxer Shannon Courtenay ‘refused’ to hit during one of the most ‘violent’ challenges.
The pair join winner Amber Gill, EastEnders actress and and ’s AJ Pritchard as the Channel 4 show returns to screens showcasing some pretty intense training.
AJ’s brother Curtis has also signed up for the new series, as well as footballer and former Olympic sprinter Dwayne Chambers.
In tonight’s episode, the first of the new series, Shannon and Calum are pitted against each other and forced to fight in the milling task, which is described as ‘one of the most violent.’
However, boxer Shannon refuses to fight Calum, despite being allowed to pick who she wants to go up against.
Speaking to Metro.co.uk and other publications ahead of the episode airing, she shared that she refused to ‘hit anyone’.
She said: ‘They picked me out first and you choose your person so I said I’d go for the biggest person which was Calum, and I told him to hit me and I wouldn’t him back and Billy [Directing Staff Mark ‘Billy’ Billingham] said that if I don’t hit him back they’ll [punish] everyone.’
In the episode, Shannon begins by protecting her own body as Calum hits her, although he is trying to get her to hit him back, pleading with her as they fight.
Meanwhile, watching from the sidelines, Towie star Pete Wicks is heard saying ‘Come on Shannon,’ as they all watch her take the beating and refuse to hit back.
Shannon added to us that the reason she refused to hit back was that she didn’t want to hurt anyone.
However, this led to her ultimately failing the task.
Meanwhile,
The former Celebrity Big Brother star, and son of late legend George Best had to fall backwards off a mountain Ferne pulling on a cord to balance his weight, which would help lower him to safety.
However, she didn’t pull hard enough and he plunge down the mountainside – only to be saved by the crew who were able to step in and prevent a fatal accident.
‘The DS told me, “If we didn’t save the cord, that thing was splitting and you were falling to your death”. Ferne started crying,’ he told .
Calum admitted that at the time he was quick to give Ferne some support, but he later had time to let the very real danger of the situation sunk in, and realise how close he was to dying.
He said: ‘In the moment you want to support your friend and say, “It’s OK,” but in hindsight you look back and you go, “Jesus Christ, what the f**k, if that had gone a little bit wrong for two more seconds I could have been falling backwards to my death!”
‘It was like, “For f**k’s sake, woman, please pull the cord and don’t kill me!” Like, “Come on, I’m not killing you. You don’t kill me — please!”‘
Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins returns to Channel 4 tonight, Sunday, 4 September at 9pm.
