Is a prime-time show as wild as Gladiators?
During the filming of the original run of the show in the Nineties, ace opened up about his steroid and alcohol abuse.
The blond hunk joined Gladiators in the fifth series in 1996 and was soon earning £2,000 an hour, hanging out with celebrities and even getting an engagement ring.
He said that he saw destructive forces in his life. The choices I made were killing me.
In recent years, the OG Gladiators have lifted the lid on the unbelievable and sometimes dark underside of the show.
Ahead of the upcoming remake, we look back at the past.
Life-threatening accident
Jet was one of the original cast but quit after four seasons.
Jet was forced to bow out due to a neck injury she sustained during a live show in 1996.
She wondered if she had broken her neck.
Medics said she would have died from a fatal hangman break if she hadn’t been so bendy.
She said that she could have been sitting in a chair for the rest of her life.
I made a choice and left.
Jet, who was 49 years old at the time, has trained as a therapist.
Helen O’Reilly, also known as Panther, suffered a serious neck and back injury when she fell head-first during the event.
Backstage orgies
James Crossley, also known as Hunter, spilled the tea on the sexy antics behind the scenes at Gladiators.
He said there was a lot of sexual tension in the group.
I will leave it to you to figure out what happened.
He said there was a lot of testosterone in the air. Some people would go off in threesomes with other people.
There were affairs, some of which have never been made public. Those involved will take that stuff to the grave.
Ulrika Jonsson and Hunter dated between 1996 and 1997 but kept their relationship a secret.
Jailed for corruption
Michael Ahearne, also known as Warrior, was cheered by millions on Gladiators until he died.
In the first six series of the show, the 6ft4 muscle-man starred, but in 1997 he became involved in a plot to foil the prosecution of Philip Glennon Jnr, a then-associate of former international cocaine barons.
Glennon Jnr was sentenced to six years in prison in 1998 for attempting to murder a doorman and a police officer.
Warrior was sent to prison in 1998 for corruption and for lying to the court.
He was sentenced to 15 months in prison but only served six due to his good behavior.
He ran into trouble with the law again after police raided his home and found a large amount of steroids.
He pleaded guilty to three counts of possession of a weapon designed or adapted for the discharge of a noxious liquid.
He was sentenced to six months in prison in October of last year.
‘Bleeding drunk’
When he battled contestants on Gladiators, he was oftenbleeding drunk.
He struggled to chase contestants up the wall because he was so drunk.
In 2020, cobra told the mirror that he didn’t take it too seriously. I had a lot of fun messing with pranking.
When international Gladiators came over, we would be up all night partying.
In the last few years, Cobra has battled serious illness and has even been hospitalized with pneumonia.
He blamed his illness on his punishing workouts for the show. It has been touching and going.
Spiralling addiction
Shadow was one of the most formidable Gladiators on the show, but his TV career was cut short when he became involved in a drug scandal.
Steroids were found in his system and he was kicked off the show.
Shadow struggled with addiction and legal problems for the next 20 years after his marriage collapsed due to a cheating row.
Shadow hit the headlines again last year after falling foul of the law, despite the fact that he had turned his life around.
Shadow was sentenced to 6 years and 3 months for blackmailing over a drug debt.
He was one of four people who held a man hostage for hours in a flat in west London, where he was tortured and filmed for a large sum of money.
According to a report, Shadow is a long-time user of drugs.
He claimed that Gladiators producers turned a blind eye to Shadow’s addiction.
He said that they turned a blind eye to the fact that he was doing drugs for six months.
There was a lot of pressure on him.