Adventurer Bear Grylls once hollowed out a camel carcass and slept inside it, so he’s probably well-equipped to handle the latest round of complaints fired at his reality television shows.
If you watched Grylls use his own urine as a source of hydration or break a snake’s neck with his teeth in Man V Wild, you probably wouldn’t have batted an eyelid when images of two men being administered an enema with a rubber tube and water bottle appeared on the final episode of his latest series The Island With Bear Grylls.
The act apparently was not only uncomfortable for the islanders but for viewers of the show, which was broadcast on Britain’s Channel 4 and generated a social media uproar and complaints to the communications regulator.
“This Bear Grylls program is absolutely ridiculous & completely disgusting. It will never be on my tv ever again,” posted a clearly unamused Yasmin Evans on Twitter.
“Why am I watching bear grylls this is absolutely disgusting!!!,” Hayley Dack posted.
“Watching Bear Grylls The Island. Im not a squeamish person but watching a boy get an enema on tv while I’m eating my dinner crosses the line,” Adam Henderson wrote.
Long-term Grylls fans would be well aware of the benefits of knowing how to perform such an intimate procedure. Once when the intrepid explorer was stuck at sea on a makeshift raft, he gave himself an enema to ensure he didn’t dehydrate.
The Island involves Grylls dropping 13 men on a remote Pacific island and the rest of us watching what happens when “you strip a man of all the luxuries and conveniences of modern living and then force him to fight for his existence”.
It’s not the first time the show has had to fight for its own existence, it was accused of being sexist for not including any women in its cast and an episode where a caiman was killed for food generated more complaints.
The show was accused of being full of fake stunts when it was revealed that some of the contestants had worked with Grylls before and were used to surviving in extreme conditions. More controversy ensued when a muddy water supply found by the dehydrated islanders was divulged to be a rubber pool put there, and topped up, by the show’s crew.
Two of the aforementioned caimans were also found to have been released by crew, with the producers saying they had to ensure there were enough “native animals” for the men to find, catch and kill.
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But Grylls, who was one of the youngest people to summit Mount Everest and is also the youngest Chief Scout, knows how to weather a storm and he’ll be back for another season of the The Island.
Channel 4 is appealing for 13 male volunteers who want to appear in the show, expected to air in 2015, to register their interest. No experience of adventure or survival pursuits is necessary.
– FFX Aus