Love Island stars 'sign up' for Celeb SAS - as instructors prepare to 'push them mentally'
Two Love Island stars may be packing their bags and signing up for a very different type of adventure, as it has been reported they are lined up to appear in this year’s Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins.
According to The Sun, the two ex-Islanders competing in the series known as TV’s toughest reality show will be Chloe Burrows, who appeared on Love Island in 2021, and Adam Collard, who was on the dating series in 2018 and 2022. "Bosses were thrilled to sign Chloe and Adam as they have a huge fanbase from Love Island, so it helps hook that demographic into the show,” a source told The Sun.
"Like most celebs, Chloe is out of her comfort zone doing a show like SAS but she wants to prove to herself that she can do hard things. As for Adam, he’s fit as a fiddle so should find the physical challenges easier than some, but the SAS crew will want to put him through it mentally too in the interrogations and get to the bottom of his cocky exterior."
The pair won’t be the first Love Island stars to appear in the series – Camilla Thurlow, Curtis Pritchard, Montana Brown, Teddy Soares and Amber Gill have previously competed, while Wes Nelson won the series in 2021. OK! has reached out to Channel 4 for comment.
The celebrity version of SAS: Who Dares Wins is held to raise money for Stand Up To Cancer. The show has contestants experiencing a shortened version of the training that real Special Forces trainees go through, and this includes putting them in extreme environments, testing their mental and physical abilities and even subjecting them to tense interrogations.
Contestants are either culled, voluntarily withdraw, withdraw on medical reasons, or stay in the competition. Previous celebrities who have been instructed by a team of veterans led by Jason ‘Foxy’ Fox include Sam Thompson, Joey Essex, Katie Price, Fatima Whitbread, and Jennifer Ellison.
In 2023, singer Gareth Gates won the show, beating celebrities including James Argent, footballer Jermaine Pennant and MP Matt Hancock. He spoke to OK! about the experience in November 2023 and confessed he needed six weeks of therapy after the show because it brought back memories of childhood bullying.
“I’ve had a stammer my entire life, and it was mainly lads at school that mocked me for it,” explains Gareth. “But there was one boy that would sometimes hold me down and say, ‘I’m going to beat the words out of you.’ That would get a rise out of the rest of the kids, so it became entertainment.”
The memories of that time came back during the interrogation sections of Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins.
“I needed to go to therapy afterwards because they tapped into it again,” he says. “I’ve hidden the trauma for so long and not talked about it. I’ve never let people see those scars, ever. On Pop Idol, I spoke about my speech, but I never told people the true extent of it. It’s a very personal thing, and so to do it in such a public way, I had to make a decision in my head to do that.”
