Mel B says being hunted by Bear Grylls for Netflix series like a ‘nightmare’

Spice Girl Melanie Brown has said being hunted by Bear Grylls for a new Netflix series was the “scariest thing” and akin to a “nightmare”.

Celebrity Bear Hunt, hosted by former This Morning presenter Holly Willoughby, sees famous faces dropped into the jungle and become prey for survival expert Grylls.

The contestants stay in a lodge and are pursued by Grylls, 50, when they enter the Bear Pit, where they are given a map and different options for escape.

Brown, 49, told the PA news agency: “It was the worst, most scariest thing.

“It’s like one of those dreams that you know is a dream, and it’s a nightmare, but it’s actually true.”

She continued: “At one point he was up there, and I was underneath the rock, and I could hear him breathing, and I’m thinking, ‘Do I move? Don’t I move?’

“It’s like pure panic and then when you know he’s on to you, you start to run like the panthers and hope that you don’t fall over and damage any part of your body because once he starts running at you, that is it.

“And I didn’t even know he could run that fast.”

Irish singer Una Healy told PA the Bear Pit “was like a horror film”, adding: “It’s scary looking on the outside, and then you go in to the complete unknown.

“You’re given a map, and you just don’t know, like you get lost in there, the Bear Pit’s really, just so big.”

The terrain in Costa Rica, where the show was filmed, meant that the competitors also faced injuries.

TV presenter Steph McGovern said: “I was permanently covered in bruises, my first thing where I get caught by Bear, I managed to get his hand print in bruises on my legs.

“I mean, I bruise easily, he was just doing his job.

“So I’m covered, you’ll see throughout, my legs are just covered in bruises the whole time.

“But the main injury was when I fell off a cliff and hit a wall and then kind of hurt my nose and stuff like that.

“And again, I had the world’s biggest bruise on my bum.”

Presenter Willoughby, 43, said all of the contestants surprised her and suggested that people might “underestimate” the female celebrities competing.

“You can’t help but have previous expectations of all of them really,” she told PA.

“You sort of have an idea in your head ‘Well, that person’s gonna be like this, or I’ve seen that person doing this sort of thing’, and I think we’re all a bit guilty of putting people in boxes.

“And actually, all of them surprised me.”

Grylls added: “I got a real kick out of seeing people like Shirley (Ballas) really come alive.

“So I think she sort of arrived a little back foot, feeling she’s older than everyone else, she’s never done anything like this before. How’s she going to cope?

“But actually, so much of survival and adventure is a state of mind, it’s how you approach stuff.

“And you can’t get to be at that level of her profession and dancing without having a streak of steel, being committed, brave, good under pressure. So she started to really grow.”

Willoughby added: “All the girls, really, because I think sometimes you think, you put girls in that environment, and people underestimate some of the girls, you know, like Lottie (Moss) and those girls.

“You look at this beautiful girl, and you think, is she made of any tough stuff? And I tell you what, she’ll surprise you in there.”

The other competitors include model Leomie Anderson, Ted Lasso star Kola Bokinni and TV interior designer Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen.

TV chef Big Zuu, The Inbetweeners actor Joe Thomas, former tennis player Boris Becker and retired rugby player Danny Cipriani complete the line-up.

Celebrity Bear Hunt is on Netflix from February 5.