Celebrity SAS fans have been left reeling over one ‘celebrity’ as they claim the choice to have a convicted drug smuggler as a contestant on the show is ‘disgusting’
As the new series of Celebrity SAS returned to our screens again on 3 August, fans have been left reeling over one ‘celebrity’ as they claim the choice to have Michaella McCollum as a contestant on the show is ‘disgusting’.
Michaella first made headlines as one half of the so-called Peru Two after she and Melissa Reid were arrested at Jorge Chavez International Airport in Lima, Peru, on 6 August 2013.
Their luggage contained £1.5m worth of cocaine, and Michaella spent three years behind bars in one of South America’s toughest prisons before being granted early release.
Now 32, she is stepping back into the spotlight in the new series of Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins, alongside the likes of Rebecca Loos and Conor Benn, however, fans are not pleased. It comes after Sir Michael Palin says he is preparing for the end of his life in sad update.
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Last week, Michaella appeared on ITV’s This Morning and was met with criticism. Fans of the show took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to share their thoughts on the celebrity lineup. One person wrote: “The bookers for @thismorning #thismorning and #CelebritySAS should hang their heads in shame for booking a drugs mule. How on earth does that give them celebrity status!! And what message does it send to young people? Shocking.”
Another person penned: “Hey, @Channel4, how come this criminal is being allowed to profit from her drugs mule crime on the ‘celebrity’ edition of SAS Who Dares Wins?” While a third added: “#thismorning I don’t consider a convicted drug smuggler to be a celebrity, which is a fair enough reason for Michaella McCollum not to be a contestant on #CelebritySAS”.
Another unhappy fan wrote: “I’ve never missed a series, but I’m sitting this one out. Having a convicted drug smuggler classed as a celebrity is disgusting and sends the wrong message to young kids, plus it’s insulting to the others taking part.”
Ahead of appearing on the show, Michaella opened up on how she has changed and grown as a person. She said that signing up for the show was able to help her take back control of her life.
She told the Mirror: “I feel like in my younger days, I made lots of mistakes, so then I was really cautious of doing things, because I didn’t want to mess up again. I didn’t want to mess up, I didn’t want to make any more mistakes.
“But we can’t live life like that, because we’re always going to make mistakes, we’re always going to make bad choices, obviously not as bad a choice as I made previously, but it’s okay to make a mistake.
“I had got to the point where I was just refusing to do a lot of things because I was scared. What if I mess it up? What if I take this job and it doesn’t work out? What if I move to this place and it doesn’t work out? I was just a little bit afraid of making those decisions. I felt stuck. So I guess that was the main thing for me, to try and learn to overcome that.
“I was at the point in my life where I was just stuck in my comfort zone, and I thought this is a good way to break those barriers and do the things that scare me, and maybe that will help me in the future with decisions and just different things in life.”
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