SAS drill ‘Peru Two' coke mule Michaela McCollum in new season of celebrity TV series

Sunday World

3 days ago

McCollum recalls wayward years before she wound up in prison for smuggling
And the 31-year-old tells her interrogators on Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins that she's finally found love with her twin sons.
In a raw interview on the Channel 4 series, in which celebrities are put through an SAS selection course, Michaella breaks down while talking about the public reaction to her drug smuggling conviction and jail term, and her ex-army interrogators speculate that she has PTSD.
Michaella and Melissa Reid were stopped in Lima airport and found to have nearly 12kgs of cocaine
She served three years in a maximum security prison in Peru after being caught trying to smuggle £1.5 million worth of cocaine to Spain, and says some members of the public continue to castigate her.
'I feel like my life has been defined from my incident in Peru,' she says.
'Some people want me to suffer for ever for the mistake that I've made but I feel like I've paid for that more than enough.'
Michaella is one of 14 celebrities taking part in the seventh series of Celebrity SAS including dancer Louie Spence, boxer Conor Benn, former footballer Troy Deeney and Rebecca Loos, who shot to fame over claims of an affair with David Beckham.
Interrogation
The show doesn't disclose celebrity payments but former British health minister Matt Hancock had to publicly declare his £45,000 fee in 2023, and last year actor John Barrowman was paid £30,000 despite bowing out after 32 minutes.
The Celebrity SAS contestants are put through their paces
The celebrities are put through gruelling exercises on the series, filmed in north Wales, including a jump into the Irish Sea, a hostage rescue and a hang over a 160ft drop — all in just the first two days.
They're also grilled by the former soldiers assessing them when they're hooded and marched to an interrogation room.
During her extensive questioning, Michaella tells the ex-military team she's one of ten children raised by a single mother, with an absent father. She spiralled into addiction to ketamine, Subutex and mephedrone at just 16 when she rebelled against the discipline of five older brothers, and at 19 she fled to Ibiza.
'I just wanted out so I got a one-way trip to Ibiza. I thought I can have freedom there,' she says.
'I was only in Ibiza for six weeks and I was partying a lot at the start. I met this group of friends and I was in a party one night taking acid and one of the guys asked me would I go to Barcelona and pick up a package.
The Celebrity SAS contestants are put through their paces
'And then I ended up just getting deeper and deeper in this trap. I was passed over to so many different people and taken to all these different locations and then they put me on a flight to Peru in South America and I knew it was wrong and I know I shouldn't have done it, but I just felt so scared.
'If I didn't do it what would they do to me, or would they do anything to my family, and I didn't know how to get out of the situation.'
With Melissa Reid from Scotland she was arrested trying to leave Peru smuggling nearly 12 kilos of cocaine, and her life of notoriety began as pictures of the pair in Lima airport were beamed round the world.
In December 2013 the drug mules were sentenced to six years and eight months in jail.
'It was a maximum security prison. It was in the middle of the desert. There was male and female, and it was like the worst people, lots of people were on drugs, there was lots of abuse, the conditions were awful,' says Michaella.
'I tried to see to see it as a time where I could learn a new language. I could learn a lot about other people. I could learn a lot about myself.'
Close up of Michaella McCollum looking distressed on the show
She was freed after three years in prison, granted parole for her work in a beauty salon behind bars. But any hopes of a return to a normal life were dashed and she is emotional describing the reaction to her release.
'In the end I got released and then I came back and it was just like a circus,' says Michaella.
Frenzy
'It was a frenzy, and that was really hard, because I knew I had messed up, but constantly being reminded of that and how I'm such an awful person.
' I knew I did something bad but I think the media just made it harder and then I tried to go back to normal but life was not normal any more. I had just turned 24.
'People were continuing with their normal lives but my mind was f***ed up because I had seen stuff you shouldn't normally see.'
Michaella and Adam Collard hanging from rope during Hang Tough task
Since returning home Michaella has completed a business and marketing degree at Ulster University, written a memoir about her time in jail, done TV and radio interviews, and featured in the BBC documentary High: Confessions of an Ibiza Drug Mule, now on Netflix, for which the corporation declared she wasn't paid.
She reveals the arrival of twin sons Raphael and Rio in 2018 was a turning point. She's previously told her Instagram followers she's no longer with their dad.
'I had my boys just under two years after I got released from prison,' says Michaella.
'Having two children at once, alone was quite difficult but I feel like that was like me finding my purpose. I had these two people that taught me how to love, like really love, which I never really experienced in life, but I'm really happy with my boys and the life that we have.
'But now I want to challenge myself and see how capable I am.
'I just need to get rid of the self-doubt and remember that I am capable of doing it because once that voice gets in your head, I just need to get that out,' she says.
Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins is on Channel 4 today at 9pm.