Amber Turner is best known for The Only Way Is Essex on which she has been brutally honest about her relationship highs and lows with co-star Dan Edgar (from whom she split this year)- but she hopes her latest TV stint will show fans a different side to her.
Thousands of miles away from Essex in the Vietnam jungle, Amber Turner battled torrential rain and the company of disgraced former health secretary Matt Hancock as she walked a tightrope at least ten metres in the air, ran for miles whilst wearing a backpack weighing 25kg and dragged _Love Island_er Teddy Soares across a fast-flowing river for Celeb SAS: Who Dares Wins.
Now, she tells Grazia all about the experience...
What was the biggest challenge on Celeb SAS?
For me, it was the trench foot. My feet were red raw and I was having to put wet socks and boots on and then run through the pain. I remember sitting on the end into my bed and I was dripping with sweat, but I had goosebumps all over my body and I was shaking because I was in so much pain. I had tears rolling down my face - I was in agony. I've never had pain like it. My feet were f**ked for months!
The physical side of things was tough, but I'm quite fit so I was never going to quit from the fitness side of things. I was quite enjoying it surprisingly, but it was hard. I did long distance track when I was younger so have always been pretty fit and quite enjoy running, even when weighed down by the rucksacks. It was the feet, the feet was the hard part.
In the first episode of Celeb SAS we saw you have a bag thrown over your head before you were dragged to an unknown location. How was that?
That was the only thing I was scared of! I'm not scared of heights, and as much as I hate bugs and stuff like that, we were only told to look out for snakes and I can deal with those. Of course, it was the first thing that happened! Before we even got put on the SAS course, the bag went over my head.
The only thing that stopped me quitting was that it was such early days - I couldn't be the first person to quit the show before even making it onto the course.
I was crying. It was so dark under the bag and I had noise cancelling headphones on so I was clinging to the person next to me, just to make sure that they're still there. I was hyperventilating - it was terrifying.
Who of the Celeb SAS cast did you get close to?
I think that all of us girls did bond. But really I felt like everyone was close with everyone. There wasn't really anyone specifically that I was super close to more than the others. Danielle Lloyd was on the bed next to mine and it felt a bit like she was like my big sister whilst we were in the jungle.
Normally on TOWIE I feel like I'm the one that looks after all the girls - I'm like the defender of all my friends - so it was quite nice to have someone that was older than me to sort of take the role that I normally take.
Siva Kaneswaran was the biggest sweetheart as well.
What do you hope viewers will learn about you from watching you on Celeb SAS?
That I'm a tough cookie!
What's the next challenge for you?
I would love to do Dancing on Ice. I used to dance when I was younger, but I’ve got awful balance so I think it would be a real challenge for me.
Would you follow in Matt Hancock's footsteps and do I’m A Celeb?
When we were in Vietnam, the producers and the SAS officers banged on about the bugs, but we didn't really see that many of them because it was raining so much. We had the odd leech on us which wasn't a great experience, but we didn't really get covered in bugs. I am terrified of spiders so I weirdly think that I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here would be harder than Celeb SAS!
I'd have no problem jumping out of a plane, but as soon as bugs were involved I’d be terrible - no one would be eating.