Celebrity SAS: who’s in the cast this year, from Lady Leshurr to three Love Island stars

Nothing screams guilty pleasure like watching a group of celebrities getting put through their paces in the name of television.

And fortunately, we’re about to watch a whole lot of just that, as Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins is heading back to Channel 4 this week.

Under the tutelage of ex-SAS soldiers Billy Billingham (the chief instructor), Foxy, Rudy Reyes and Chris Oliver, the celebs will be heading to Wales to take part in the first phase of SAS selection.

This involves saying goodbye to all their home comforts, and learning what it takes to be a toughened special forces soldier. That means runs, mud crawls, and camping in the depths of Wales.

It’s not a job for the faint-hearted, so who are our bold new recruits? Let’s dive right in.

Adebayo “The Beast” Akinfenwa

(Channel 4)

Akinfewa is a former footballer, who spent time at Swansea City, Doncaster Rovers, Millwall and Wycombe Wanderers over the course of his career. He was nicknamed ‘the Beast’ for his physical prowess and incredible goal-scoring abilities, racking up more than 200 goals during his time on the field.

Troy Deeney

(Channel 4)

Deeney is another footballer. Born 1988, he was a striker who started his career at Walsall and spent more than 11 years at Watford, playing 400 matches.

“I'm at a crossroads in my life, so I'm hoping the course can highlight the good and bad in me and hopefully we'll see at the end, that the good outweighs the bad,” he said about the show.

Conor Benn

(Channel 4)

Born in 1996, Conor Benn is a boxer and the son of champion boxer Nigel Benn. He was brought up in luxury: as a child, he spent 12 years in Mallorca, living in an eight-bedroom mansion with a jacuzzi in his room. Benn has been adamant that his father never gave him handouts though, and has talked about “doing painting and decorating in Spain for €20 a day...from six to five.”

Louie Spence

(Channel 4)

Spence was one of the biggest names on British TV about 10 years ago. A professional dancer from Essex, he got his big break on Sky docu-soap Pineapple Dance Studios. He went onto appear on Loose Women, Benidorm, Harry Hill's TV Burp and Celebrity Juice, as well as Celebrity Big Brother. He also counts a lot of big-name celebs among his friends, including the Beckhams.

"Victoria's a really, really down-to-earth girl, with a wicked sense of humour," he once told the Daily Record.

Tasha Ghouri

(Channel 4)

If you recognise Ghouri, it’s probably from Love Island, where she was a contestant on the 2022 series of Love Island. Born deaf, she took up ballet at the age of 3 and became a commercial dancer and fashion model.

“I'm very excited to actually take on the course and just go for it, push myself and really challenge myself. But I also want to show people that having a disability makes you no less able - we can also push ourselves, and do crazy challenges if we put our mind to it,” she said.

Harry Clark

(Channel 4)

Clark shot to fame in series two of the Traitors, playing a double-dealing Traitor who made it all the way through the show to clinch victory in the finale. But Clark has a history in the army: he actually served as a British Army engineer. Surely that’s cheating?

“Growing up, I'd watch people close to me be in the SAS, which always inspired me,” he said. “This show was a different experience to what I had imagined but I always love a challenge and it proves you're always learning new things about yourself.”

Hannah Spearritt

(Channel 4)

Spearritt is an actor and pop star. She was an original member of S Club 7, before segueing to an acting career, playing the character of Abby Maitland in the sci-fi drama Primeval and Kandice Taylor in EastEnders.

Rebecca Loos

(Channel 4)

The Dutch-born Loos is a former glamour model and media personality. She shot to notoriety after claiming to have had an affair with David Beckham (which he strenuously denies) and went onto appear on reality TV shows and magazine covers from there.

Bimini

(Channel 4)

Bimini is a UK drag artist who appeared on season two of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK, where they finished as a runner-up. These days, they work as an author, recording artist, model and drag queen, of course.

“I want to do this just to prove to myself that I'm capable of anything I put my mind to,” they said.

“People in the UK love to debate gender like it’s a concept, not a lived experience. It gets reduced to headlines and toilet talk. I’m doing this to remind them that behind every opinion is a human being. The course, the SAS and the Army have got a very masculine stereotype and I've got both elements of masculine and feminine and that’s my superpower.”

Michaella McCollum

(Channel 4)

An odd signing. McCollum is one of the Peru Two: in 2013, she and her friend Melissa Reid made headlines after they were caught trying to smuggle 11 kilos of cocaine out of Peru. They were jailed in Ancon 2 prison on the outskirts of Lima and were released in 2016.

“In Peru, I was completely stripped back to the rawest version of myself…and I know in this course, it will have a similar effect,” she said. “I will get to see the real me again and I want to challenge myself to see how capable I am. I don't know if I'm physically fit enough to complete the course but I have good mental strength.”

Lucy Spraggan

(Channel 4)

Spraggan is an English singer-songwriter who appeared as an X Factor contestant in 2012; following that, she became the first contestant in the show’s history to score a Top 40 single and album before the show even came out. Since then, she’s released seven studio albums.

Adam Collard

(Channel 4)

Another reality TV veteran. Collard first appeared on the fourth series of Love Island in 2018 as the first “bombshell” and was condemned for his gaslighting behaviour on the show. In 2022, he returned to the villa, and has gone onto appear in shows like Celebs Go Dating.

“Hopefully during the course, the DS will peel back a few layers because I'm stubborn as hell. And maybe I need to be broken down to then go and sort some stuff out,” he said. “I'm doing it for the little boy who hated himself and couldn't do anything and was the last to get picked in everything. And from an emotional point of view, I'm hoping that this spits out a better person.”

Lady Leshurr

(Channel 4)

Melesha Katrina O’Garro, otherwise known as Lady Leshurr, is a British rapper, singer-songwriter and producer. She released her first mixtape at the age of 14 and went onto win second place in the Best Female Category of the Official Mixtape Awards in 2011. In 2016 she won a MOBO Award for Best Female Act, and in 2019 she performed as the special guest for Nicki Minaj during her Birmingham and Manchester appearances.

Chloe Burrows

(Channel 4)

Burrows is yet another Love Island star – she appeared on the seventh series of the show in 2021. Since then she’s made appearances on Scared of the Dark and Celebs Go Dating and has her own podcast called Chloe vs The World.

Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins starts on Channel 4 from August 3