Bear Grylls, a Fraud?
Filed in archive Adventure by Terah Shelton on July 25, 2007
However, Mark Weinert, an adviser for the show, spoke out about the recent allegations, saying "the program does not claim that presenter Bear Grylls's experience is one of unaided solo survival.' Even more, on my favorite episode when Grylls is stranded on a deserted island, the crew allegedly built the raft we later see him defending sharks away from.
On personal note, I'll be a bit disappointed if these allegations turn out to be true. I watch Man vs. Wild every Friday and Tivo the ones I miss. As an outdoor lover, I watch with a sense of discovery and interest. Hoping, maybe, he will teach me something that could one day save my life. The advisers and producers of the show may claim "Bear does his own stunts" is not enough. I interpret the show and his experiences to be real. If he leads us to believe he's sleeping in a man-made tent or sailing the waters of the Pacific in a raft he built, then I believe him. Anything else on the contrary is misleading.
The Eton- educated 33-year- old is also alleged to have choreographed parts of Born Survivor, with many of his spectacular stunts carefully set up by the production crew
Channel 4 last night began an investigation into the claims, which follow a number of embarrassing incidents in which programmes screened by the station were found to have misled the public.
Grylls's show attracted 1.4million viewers when it was shown in March and April, with audiences enthralled as he demonstrated gruesome survival tips that included sucking the fluid from fish eyeballs and squeezing water from animal dung.
But an adviser to Born Survivor yesterday claimed that many of his other escapades were not exactly as they seemed on TV.
In one episode filmed in California's Sierra Nevada mountains he was shown biting off the head of a snake for breakfast and boasting that he was living on 'just a water bottle, a cup and a flint for making fire'.
Viewers were not told that he was actually spending some nights in the Pines Resort hotel at Bass Lake, where the rooms have Internet access and is advertised as 'a cosy getaway for families' complete with blueberry pancakes for breakfast.
In another episode when Grylls declared he was a 'real life Robinson Crusoe' stuck on a desert island, he was actually on an outlying part of the Hawaiian archipelago and retired to a motel at nightfall.
Mark Weinert, a survival consultant brought in for the programme, said one show also wrongly gave the impression that the adventurer built a Polynesian- style raft using only materials around him, including bamboo and palm leaves for a sail.
Mr Weinert had in fact led a team that built the raft, which was then dismantled so that Grylls could be shown constructing it on camera.
In another episode, Grylls was filmed attempting to lasso 'wild' mustang in the Sierra Nevada, when the horses were actually tame and had been brought in by trailer from a nearby trekking station.
'If you really believe everything happens the way it is shown on TV, you are being a little bit naive,' Mr Weinert told the Sunday Times.
Channel 4 confirmed that Grylls had used hotels during expeditions and ordered the production company that made the programme to investigate the other claims.
A spokesman said: 'We take any allegations of misleading our audiences seriously.
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