Breakdowns, name calling and fallouts are just some of the explosive on-screen drama that have made the inaugural season of SAS Australia one of the wildest shows of the year.
And it’s all due to its star recruits, who are fuelling their feuds well beyond the SAS compound.
As the dust finally looks to settle on Roxy Jacenko’s highly publicised spat with Candice Warner, actor Firass Dirani has been kickstarting a round of his own!
Last week, radio host Merrick Watts and former The Biggest Loser coach Shannan Ponton got into a heated onscreen argument following Firass’ disrespectful comments to the Directing Staff – and even though filming wrapped up months ago, it seems there’s still no love lost between the trio.
Firass’ disrespectful comments to the DS sparked a disagreement between contestants.
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Despite Merrick and Firass insisting they didn’t “have a problem” with each other, the Underbelly star, 35, accused the comedian, 46, of being a “control freak” who “singled him out” and tried to “baby” him during filming.
Merrick responded, “Yeah, because I’m a dad, Firass, and you’re a child, that’s why!”
Meanwhile, the name-calling hit a new low when Shannan branded the actor “a sociopath”, while Firass called the trainer a “redneck”.
Firass called the trainer a “redneck”.
(Channel Seven)Speaking to Woman’s Day, Shannan, 46, admits to being frustrated by Firass’ approach to the series, which often resulted in his co-stars getting punished because of his misbehaviour.
“All he had to do was shut his mouth and do what he was told. It wasn’t rocket science, and it wasn’t something that was beyond him or anybody else in the cast,” he says.
“Signing up to a military-based show you need to toe the line. In a real-life situation if you don’t do as you’re told, people die,” he adds, noting that he remembers encouraging Firass to rethink his attitude.
“I said, ‘Do you understand how this is going to be played out on TV? You’re making the same mistake every day. All of Australia is going to think you’re an a***hole.’ It didn’t seem to worry him at the time, even after multiple conversations!”
Meanwhile AFLW star, Sabrina Frederick, 23, has also been on the receiving end of Firass’ snarky brashness, revealing she felt he was intentionally trying to provoke her.
“Personally, he would just say one-line comments to me every day,” she says of living with him. “I’m an emotional person. Don’t get me wrong, I look like a hard-a**e on the show, but I’m a very emotional person and a caring person, and for me, I couldn’t understand why he was saying [those] things.”
The sports star, who has been praised for her physical and mental ability on the show, says she even broke down in tears because of the tension between the pair.
“One day he got me and I just lost it,” Sabrina confesses.
“I [didn’t] want to cry on camera but at the same time that’s how I felt at the time.”
Sabrina tells Woman’s Day that she felt a sense of anxiety working with Firass on an upcoming challenge because she struggled to trust the actor.
“I just felt I had to be honest with him and tell him where I was at [mentally], so then he had a choice to keep things the same or try to improve them,” she says.
“I was worried because when you get to the later stages of the course you depend on your team a hell of a lot more… I didn’t feel like I could depend on him.”
