We’re known as TV hard men, we’re anything but – we don’t wear the trousers at home, says SAS: Who Dares Wins’ DS’

TELLY’S most-loved tough guys are returning to screens next week as Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins’ - alongside sixteen new celebrity recruits. 

This time, the fearsome four lead their recruits through non-stop rain to conquer heights, battle through jungles and survive flesh-rotting trench foot. It's tough, they say - tougher than ever. 

But despite their hard image on the TV, the DS’ are keen for people to know that they do everything they do - including barking orders in celebrities’ faces - for their benefit. 

In fact, Rudy Reyes, Jason 'Foxy' Fox, Mark 'Billy' Billingham and Chris Oliver are softer than you might think, even joking they don’t wear the trousers at home. 

Billy, 58, who has been part of the SAS: Who Dares Wins team since it first aired in 2015, says: “It may come across brutal on telly, but we are really caring people. 

“Everything is firm, but fair - because believe it or not when you’re watching how brutal it is at home, our goal really isn’t to punish people, it’s to get every single person through to the end. 

“We’re investing time and effort into every one of them to reach their full potential, we’re not there to break them down, but to strip them back to their raw selves to help them make a better version - to help them realise what they didn’t know they could do physically and emotionally. 

“So on the course, nothing is vindictive, nothing is personal. You get shouted at and pushed to your limits and there's no let up - but it’s not to be rude, it’s the standard, no matter who the recruit is. We're always monitoring them all differently to make sure they're tested without over pushing them. 

“It comes down to, we’re dealign with people first things first, and while occasionally we may be a bit sharp, this show is not about being the best of friends, it’s about getting the most out of it.”

Billy’s wife Julie agrees: “You see the brutality and the harshness from the DS and you see people sweating and suffering, but what’s really happening is change, and they are caring for and helping people in their way. 

She jokes: “I mean, I wear the trousers in our house!”

And Foxy has no disagreement, adding: "Of course we’re nice people normally - but we know how to get the best out of people, and you can’t do that by being nice on SAS: Who Dares Wins. 

“We turn up the heat because we know the best way to develop people is to push them outside their comfort zone. So we turn up the heat, and dial it back down and show empathy when we need them to, before turning it all the way back up again. 

“I was 25 years old when I went on SAS selection, and I'd been a soldier for nine years - but I had a vice, it was my own head. I wrestled with self-doubt.

"When I first got involved with this, the day we first started filming, I was thinking, 'S**t, how am I supposed to come across on telly?' but I was like, 'I will just be who I am as I was in the military’, looking after recruits, trying to bring out the best in them. You know, the things that are rewarding.”

Rudy agrees: "People ask me all the time, 'What does it take to go through selection, what does it take to make it?' It takes not giving yourself any other options than to be at the end, like for me when I was going through this process earlier in my career, there was no other option. 

"But we are human beings too. We're caring people. We just know to really care about our recruits is to make it as tough and authentic as possible. Foxy says all the time, 'It's about their experience', and it's true.

"If you want to make steel hard, you have to put it in the fire and then in the water and smash it before putting it in the fire again. It's that heat and the passion that changes people."

Chris concludes: "Because if you're not mentally strong, you're never going to truly succeed. We want them to get something out of it. That's what it's all ultimately about. 

“We're not shy but we do go back to our dorm at night and ask each other, 'Was that alright? Did I deliver that right? Could I have done more? Is there anything I missed?' because we really always want to do the best we can, for them."

Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins returns on September 26 at 9:30pm on Channel 4