Billy Billingham MBE

Growing up in the West Midlands, Billy was a restless and often on the lookout for trouble. After being stabbed in a fight, he knew he had to make some big changes. Billy told us: “I was a rogue kid; I grew up in a tough area. Not to make excuses, because I knew what I was doing, but I was getting into a lot of trouble. Then I found the cadets – the marine cadets, actually. I learned medical, navigation, communications, and it all made sense to me. I could see where I could use that in life, as opposed to being at school – that made no sense to me at the time. Then I ended up getting stabbed and nearly dying, so I realised, I've gotta get away from here.  I missed the family, of course. But I didn't miss that lifestyle.”

On leaving the military Billy became a bodyguard for some major celebrities and has since become a celebrity in his own right, but he doesn’t see it that way. 

“I never say I'm a celebrity, I don't like that word. I just say I'm pretty well known because I've been on TV. I think I was fortunate because I was a bodyguard to celebrities before, so I saw how people treated them. But it is awkward, it really took a while to understand what it means. I went from being under the radar, no one knows who I am, what I am, to all of a sudden – the first job I get out of the military – I'm in magazines, I'm on the TV, and oh my God, it was petrifying. I soon realised I felt so much more comfortable with a gun pointing at me than a camera!

“When I first started, I’d just left the military, I needed a job. But because I'm so used to the military, where everything's on time and ready to go, it just seemed chaotic. I just had to adapt to their world, they're not going to adapt to me.”

TV break

During his time as a bodyguard and with an extensive military career behind him, Billy was regularly approached to get involved in different TV programmes, but didn’t think they were for him at first. “I got asked many times to be on shows, probably because I was seen around celebrities, and I had a certain type of face. I always turned them down. I've always wanted to do something with people who have gone through hard times, to try to turn them around.

“And then a friend approached me about this programme, special forces guys putting people through mental, physical and emotional challenges, to give an insight into how we work. I thought okay, that doesn't sound too bad. So, I said, what's it called? And as soon as he said SAS: Who Dares Wins, I went, oh, no, I'm not interested. Because I thought it's going to be cheesy.

“I then get approached about doing a programme with Freddie Flintoff about people being pushed through training, one week it’s Delta Force, next week it'll be Spetsnaz, next week it'll be the SAS with me as an instructor and I thought, OK - I like Freddie Flintoff, so I'll do that. Then the night before we were supposed to film, I’d come back from a bodyguarding job out in Nigeria and almost died. I'd had malaria four times, but this time I had cerebral malaria. I ended up in intensive care.

With the opportunity to work alongside Freddie Flintoff off the table, Billy once again heard from the production team on SAS: Who Dares Wins. The director got in touch directly. “He got my number and kept ringing me, saying we want you to come on the show.  It got to the point where I said, listen, mate, I'm not coming to London. He goes, I'll come to Hereford to meet you, and he was literally here two hours later.”

With Billy on board the show went from strength to strength and has even spawned a celebrity spin off with those taking part put through their paces all over the globe.

Billy puts its success down to the way the instructors are able to connect with the contestants. “It's not about ‘look at us, we're four special forces guys, we've done this.’ It's actually about the people, and it's about giving our experiences from the lifestyle we've had to them. I love it because it helps so many people. It turns them into a better version of themselves, and that's a fact.”

Away from his TV commitments, Billy has been able to carve out enough time to find a new passion, writing. His family were instrumental in getting him to put his experiences down on paper. “I got asked many, many times ‘would you write a book?’ and I never wanted to do that. And then I was with a bunch of my mates, chatting and having a laugh and a joke, and my daughter's waiting to take me home. On the way home she started crying and said, you know what, Dad? I don't know you. I've listened to all these stories, and I and my sisters don't know any of that. You've never told us, we know nothing. So that was really the kick up the backside for me to sit down and write my memoirs.”

After autobiography The Hard Way: Adapt, Survive and Win, Billy turned to fiction, with his military experiences helping to shape new characters and stories in thrillers Call to Kill and Survive to Fight.