Bear Grylls, a Fraud?
If you're a follower of Man vs. Wild, this next story should disappoint you. According to a recent article in the London's Daily Mail, Bear "Man vs. Wild" Grylls is a fraud. Allegedly (and I say that because that's my hope), on the Sierra Nevada episode, he stayed at the Pines Resort, with internet access and blueberry pancakes for breakfast.
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.
~admin
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bear grylls is mint and jut because he stayed in a hotel on 2 episodes people are going to stop watching it,it is stupid its a show about showing you how to survive so just great him a break he is trying to help you.still love you bear
Don’t forget the episode when he was in the Rockies and used his bag as a floatation device. When the camera gets up close to him and he is talking to the camera you can see the outline of a life-jacket!!
I DONT THINK BEAR IS A FRAUD I THINK THE PEOPLE THAT ACUSE HIM OF THIS ARE PEOPLE THAT NEVER HAVE SUMMITED EVERST OR HAVE OVER 500 SKY JUMPS, SERVERD WITH THE SPECIAL FORCES. WE SAW HIM IN ALASKA WHEN HIS LITTLE BOAT DINGY SANK 200M HE SWAM TO GET TO SAFETY KEEPT HIS CALM , THATS SOME CRAZY CRAP SWIMMING NEXT TO ICE BURGS,,,, WHAT ABOUT THE JUNGLES WHEN HE DRANK BAD WATER AND WAS SICK FOR A COUPLE OF DAYS YOU DIDNT SEE HIM IN A MOTEL WHEN HE COULD OF USED ONE, I KNOW BEAR HAS NOT ME AT LEAST A DOZEN SURVIVAL TIPS,, I HOPE THIS BLOWS OVER QUICK SO THE NEW SERIOUS CAN CONTIUE PLAYING, HOPEFULLY MORE SEASONS.
Bear is a beast! u cant say that he is not a nasty survivor!!!! i would like to see all of u try and do half the stuff that he does even with the crew there!
I believe he is a fake. He definitely isn’t anywhere near like Survivorman who shoots all his own footage and actually survives on his own solo.
Repsonse to Monica
Please Get a Grip own Footage
I’ve seen the making of Survior Man
and as far as i can say He’s getting his “advice” from other people and he doesnt take his “own” footage there were camera people I’ve seen the outakes, and i bet if someone called surviorman fake youll be defending him to, so i suggest you leave the fans alone.
Oh, please! Survivorman is soooooooooo boring. Bear is so much more interesting. Who cares whether or not he REALLY flew over Everest, or he plans a stunt. Does he or does he not eat scorpions, and spiders, and all that other stuff!?!?!?! Man vs. Wild isn’t a show about him being a daredevil! It’s called SURVIVAL TIPS!!!!!! Stop being so critical! I bet you couldn’t even TRY even 1/16 the stuff Bear does. BTW, Survivorman is no more “solo” than Bear.
Survivorman is authentic, there is NO crew unless he specifically mentions them at the VERY beginning of the show while he’s setting up his ascent/adventure. Bear, while entertaining and tough as hell, DOES tell you in the show when the crew has assisted or built something-there’s a small message at the beginning of the show detailing what is and is not accurate. Maybe you all should watch the WWE for a while.
In the everglades episode, the bear print/claw marks on the tree is clearly chiselled into the tree. It has the wrong outline, it looks like the palm also incised it’s print in the tree. Real bear sign looks like claw marks raking a tree, not like a pawprint stamped into the tree. Or it’s a very fluke example.
Anyway, I don’t really care. As long as the info is reliable, and the info is easy to come by, and Grylls is a survival expert, I don’t really care how they put the show together as long as they are up front about it.
Bear is for real!!!!
Remember that the Discovery Channel shows has to comply with OSHA regulations for workers. I was an actor/minor stuntman in LA and their are certain rules you “MUST” comply with or your show will never show!
You also must remember that Bear is a star now and makes big $$ for the BBC & Discovery, they want to make sure he lives another 10 seasons.
Rumor is he will be making a Everest Summit next year from the North Face in true Alpine style. No set ropes or ladders.
remember TV isn’t real…. when you watch Survivor they still have to take extreme measures to make sure their “talent” doesn’t get hurt.
GuruJ
3 sisters, 4 to go
If you watch the show much they have a discaimer on there saying that some challenges have been “presented” to him to show how you could do it. They never said he was out there and it is exacly what happended the whole time. Its a show for entertainment
To those of you who think Bear is a fraud are missing the whole point of the show.They’re simply trying to demonstrate survival skills that you may need someday. Bear is not the focus of the show, “LEARNING IS” It even states in the credits that he has crew for saftey and the places he is are very frequented by people, so it not like they’re trying to hide anything. I spent 16 yrs in the U.S. Army; my last 6 yrs was in the 5th special forces group at Ft. Campbell, Ky. I know first hand that those of you who hack on bear will be the first to die in a global disaster. So pay attention and Learn “DONT JUDGE WHAT YOU DONT UNDERSTAND”….!
Bear Grylls is not a fake. He hosts and stars in a TV show. I love the show. My sons, 8 and 11 years old, love the show. We also like Survivorman. Both shows provide valuable information on survival and the outdoors.
Who ever is disappointed to find out that there is a whole crew with Grylls when his is shooting a show should get help to recognize reality from TV.
If you consider Grylls a fake, you have to consider Les Stroud a fake too. In Survivorman, Stroud survives each episode. Is Stroud that good in surviving on his own? No. It is because he has a crew scheduled to rescue him after a predetermined number of days or if he sounds the alarm. He may not always have a crew with him for each episode but at the beginning of every episode he knows he is going to be rescued to be stranded another day. I think that plays a big part in a person will to survive.
Grylls and Stroud are as real as “climbers” of Everest and K2 who pay big money for a guide and an army of porters to “climb” these mountains.
Dude weither he is in a hotel what matters is that he is telling you how to survive and that is all you need to know.
Who Cares if he stayed at an Inn, He still has the finest arse I’ve ever seen – and I looked up “tough” in the dictionary and sure enough, there was Bear’s picture. Anyone who thinks survivor man is better Than Bear Grylls is a TOOL.
I thought entertainments were supposed to be that way;
compare Man Vs Wild with Survivorman. Survivorman, in my opinion, is REALLY BORING…just short monologues…and nothing intersting happens =( but Bear Grylls actually makes the show EXTREMELY INTERSTING! What if he is a Fraud? Can ordinary people sitting at home criticizing other people survive? I strongly doubt it. Bear Grylls,,, At LEAST! he has all the techniques and methods down.
Compete with that
While it is true that Bear has stayed in hotels and has a crew with him all the time that in and of itself is no reason to call him a fake. Les on survivorman by the way does not have any help or crew with him, just a radio, and that makes it more interesting to me.
Coyote,
12 Years SAR Instructor
i dont think Bear’s a fraud.i am a regular viewer of man v wild.its DAMN INTERESTING.however so i believe whatever is shown,as it is watching it is better than else worthless shows.
im sorry people are thinking that way,and yes its only a show,but none of these survivall tips are to be taken literaly,its showing you! what to do if you run out of options and if not have any, try to think of anything random that you think it might help you to get out of that situation. anyways thaks for the suporters
I share your sentiments (author of this article), I too am a wantobefan of the show and love the whole outdoors survival thing. The show is primarily about survival, being tested to the limits etc etc. The show clearly says this is what it is about… being tested to the limits in hell holes where he has to find his way out etc.
There’s no question in my mind that that it is misleading, the intro line of “I have basic survival necessities, a flint,etc – and my camera crew are coming with me” he doesn’t say, I’m going to rough it out one night on camera, stay in a plush camp or motel the rest, and if things get a bit hard, my camera crew will give me whatever I need and that every scene is carefully staged. Bear always seems to have boundless energy, if you’ve watched survivorman or experienced eating nothing but bugs and little water for days, dehydrated from the sun etc, then you would pretty quickly realise you don’t have the energy to do commando style jumps over rocks, even if you did you would not want to waste that energy.
I enjoy the show less and less because of this, it’s unfortunate… because I really like the concept and Bear seems like a nice guy. But the reality is, it’s not true to the whole purpose of survival – regretfully, it’s a staged misleading show designed for ratings.
Bear Grylls is entertaining, no doubt, but no matter how you look at it he’s deliberately defrauding his viewers. Sure you could claim that one would be “naive” to believe anything they saw on television, but there’s a reason why fictional shows like Law and Order that resemble reality to some extent have disclaimers explaining that all the events contained therein are purely fictional. Simply put, if a show attempts to pass itself off as being real then it should, by law, be real– not merely “realistic.”
If Man vs Wild simply advertised itself as being “for entertainment only” then I would be fine with it. The problem is that it tries to pass itself off as real and educational; after reading about how much of this show was actually faked, I wouldn’t want to follow half of the advice Bear Grylls gives us.
Bear u r amazin guy..wat a performance man,MIND BLOWING!on bhalf of india i would like to wish and i pray to the god that this lovely guy shud for more than 100 years.. I LOVE YOU BEAR!!!!!
sarah i totally agree with u i even think that.
Having lived most of my life living in and around the Sierra Nevada,that episode looked like it was filmed around Convict Lake not Bass Lake.
Regarding the Sierra Nevada episode. He states right in the middle of the episode that “with some help from the crew, I’m going to show you how to build a wiki…”
He’s no fraud…you people just have selective hearing! You want to believe he does everything on his own so you tune out what you don’t want to hear. Apparently some of you are unable to read because it states in the beginning of every episode: “situations are present to Bear to demonstrate survival techniques”. It’s called ENTERTAINMENT, not fraud!
If you try Bear’s survival methods, you will die!
Bear is showing techniques that work. I don’t care where he stays at night or whom teaches him how to build a boat first, if I can learn something its a moot point. The show is suppose to be a “Worse Case Scenario” of survival not the mundane everyday survival. Some of the techniques are not responsible survival but more of a last ditch effort survival mode and in some case extreme. From the conception I knew he wasn’t alone he obviously has a crew. It can never be the same as being totally alone.
Folks….Repeat after me…
Lesson 1: TV = NOT Real…
But it’s in HI-DEF…..NOT Real
But, But, They Say it is….NOT Real
But, it’s the News…..NOT Real…
But, I saw it on TV!!….EXACTLY
NOT REAL
Lesson 2….Internet = SEE LESSON 1!!!
All the “survival” tips on the show are intriguing, but if the Number 1 Can’t Miss Survival Tip is followed, the others don’t matter…
Number 1 “Can’t Miss” Survival Tip??
DON’T BE THERE!!
Cheers!
As ANY survivor expert and he/she will tell you how funny and wrong is Grylls. Not to mention he not only doesn’t know most of the stuff, but also employs a caravan of real experts who are off-screen giving him advices.
As for TV shows go, Survivorman seems to me most accurate. Surviving is not too much fun. It is planning and arranging your priorities.
Grylls Man vs Wild is simply a cute tv show that teach us little to nothing. Man vs Wild is like “Brainiack” or “Jackass” in Wild.
Therefore I don’t really expect a showman to suddenly act serious.
As far as I know any dude who is strong enough to climb a tree and knows how to present himself in TV could easily replace Bear.
So what if he spent a few nights in an hotel. After eatting grubs and worms he deserves a few blueberry pancakes. He tries to show what you could do not what you should do. Give him a break. He is on TV. Take hold to what he teaches and apply them in your own survival situation.
no i don’t think that bear grylls is a fraud. i think is a real hero that he telling people that how to survive when you are in danger so i am say that is the real one.
An obvious fraud. When surviving, you need to stay calm, cool and collected, not act like a spastic fool. True survivors don’t jump off cliffs, dive into extremely cold water, ect. Surviving is about using your head and carefully moving forward, not about running around like a freak (Bear Grylls). Breaking a bone or even a small laceration could mean death in a real life situation. Watch Survivorman on Discovery or the Science Channel to see a real survivor. Les Stroud of Survivorman doesn’t take a film crew along, he’s dropped off all alone. He’s the real thing.
the thing people need to understand about bear is he shows you what to do in the very worst situations. true survivor man shows what to do as well and “films it all himself” and he does have good info. but bear says ” if you find yourself in the worst possible situation this is what you do” then he jumps into the frozen lake to show us the proper way to get out and the proper way to recover from it. survivor man shows how to survive in the wild bear shows you how to survive and save your life