Ant Middleton insists ‘Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins’ is “a lot softer now” since he left.
Ant Middleton doesn't watch Celebrity SAS
The 42-year-old army veteran doesn’t tune in to watch his replacement Rudy Reyes on the star-studded Channel 4 military endurance show - which has featured ex ‘EastEnders’ star Maisie Smith, Olympian champion Fatima Whitbread and reality television personality Calum Best on its latest series - after the 50-year-old former Marine claimed he was a “misogynist”.
Ant - who was sacked from the show last year due to his "personal conduct" - told The Sun newspaper: “'SAS' is a lot softer now. I don’t watch it.
“A lot of celebrities ring me and tell me they’ve been asked to do the show but won’t, partly out of loyalty to me and partly because they say, ‘What would I get out of it? It’s gone soft.' "
Responding to Rudy’s allegations he had a problem with women, Ant denied it, citing his wife as a reference.
Ant said: “I can accept some things people say about me but I am not misogynistic. My wife was like, ‘If anyone spent five minutes with you, they would know that’s absolutely not right, as you never treat anyone with disrespect.’
“I don’t know Rudy, so I don’t dislike him and I don’t like him, but I know to steer clear of him now because of that unfortunate article.”
‘The Wall’ author - who was involved in the show when it began with a civilian edition in 2015 - admitted he was “really shocked” bosses maintained the name, while he also questioned Rudy’s credentials.
Ant said: “I’m really shocked they can still call it ‘SAS: Who Dares Wins’ because the chief instructor is an ex-marine. They are not tier-one Special Forces — they haven’t got that training or mindset that we have.
“My Twitter explodes on a Sunday night when the show is on. I get tweets saying, ‘Ant, when are you going to be back?’ It’s overwhelming.
“People think you can just put another person in front of the camera, but it’s really hard to deliver and come across as authentic. There’s only one Ant Middleton.”
This comes after Rudy slammed Ant - who has railed against the “cancel culture” that led him to be removed by the network - labelling him “immature” and “narcissistic”.
Of his predecessor, he said: "He's very immature, he's a very immature person.
"It's obvious how narcissistic he is. And of course, you know what, if he was ever face to face with me he wouldn't say a thing. He'd have no chance against me."
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