Ant Middleton has dropped a major spoiler about the upcoming series of SAS .
The former UK Special Forces soldier, 44, revealed a former fan favourite will make a stunning return to the Channel Seven challenge series, but not as a contestant.
On Friday, Middleton confirmed comedian Merrick Watts will be part of the directing staff (DS), marking him the n DS member on the show.
The role of the DS is to push the contestants through the course before reporting back to Chief Instructor Middleton on their progress and ability.
‘Merrick Watts, he is coming on as one of the DS, the directing staff, he is going to be by my side on the next SAS,’ he confirmed on Friday, per the Herald Sun.
‘I guess the cat is out of the bag now. We have to keep evolving it (the show), keep it fresh.’
Watts successfully passed the gruelling selection course during the first season of SAS in 2020.
Following his stint on the program, the radio presenter revealed how signing up for the gruelling Channel Seven show has helped him get through his darkest times.
Ant Middleton (pictured) has dropped a major spoiler about the upcoming series of SAS
The father-of-two said he was in the ‘worst mental state’ he’d ever been in before agreeing to go on the show.
After speaking to his doctor, he saw a psychologist and even did a 10-week mediation course, but ‘nothing’ was working.
‘I felt like I was chipping away,’ Watts said during an interview with Nova’s Fitzy and Wippa at the time.
‘I did all the right things, I spoke to a psychologist, I spoke to my doctor, I did a 10-week meditation course. Nothing was working. I know that what I needed was to rebuild my confidence.’
Middleton confirmed comedian Merrick Watts (pictured) will be part of the directing staff (DS), marking him the n DS member on the show
Watts said he knew that going on SAS would help him ‘rebuild his confidence.’
‘When I’m confident I’m very, very capable. When I’m not confident I go back into my shell… I knew that just the process of getting ready for SAS would be enough to rebuild my confidence and I was right,’ he explained.
‘I look at myself, a year ago and when I signed up for this show I was in the worst mental state I’ve ever been in. I look at myself a year later and I’m in the best physical and mental state I’ve been in in my entire life.’
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He finished: ‘It’s been extraordinarily good for my mind and my body.’
During his appearance on SAS , Watts admitted his confidence took a hit after losing his radio career ‘about three years ago’.
‘For 20 years, I worked in radio, and I was phenomenally successful. I had a number one radio program, getting massive ratings, earning a lot of money. It was a really, really good time. And it ended,’ he reflected, during his interrogation with the SAS Directing Staff.
‘You do something like radio for 20 years nonstop. You get used to a certain way of doing things, and then when you’re out of it for a little while, it’s exciting and then it’s kind of cool and it’s a release.’
Watts successfully passed the gruelling selection course during the first season of SAS in 2020
‘But then all of a sudden, there was a period where I just didn’t have a lot of work. There was a moment there where I just went, “What’s next for me? Who am I? What am I going to do?”
‘I lost my self-confidence and I lost my strength and myself. That slowly started to manifest into anxiety and depression.’
Watts confessed that his struggle with anxiety and depression was what prompted him to sign up for the show.
‘I’m doing this course to completely change myself from what I was. Everybody knows me as just a happy-go-lucky kind of guy…’ he explained.
‘But I haven’t felt that way for a while. And I want to feel that way again.’