There were plenty of moments during the gruelling selection process on SAS Australia where singer and actor Bonnie Anderson was ready to give up.
The process, which puts a group of celebrity recruits through a series of arduous physical and psychological tests from real special forces selection procedures, is unlike anything they’ve experienced. For 27-year-old Bonnie, it was harder than she ever could’ve imagined.
“Every single challenge terrified me. To be honest, I was on the tail end of leaving many, many times.” Bonnie tells TV WEEK.
Based in the Capertee Valley in NSW during the middle of the 2021 mice plague, the recruits were often cold, hungry, running on minimal sleep and trying to avoid mice from nibbling that their wounds. Naturally, the experience brought all emotions to the surface.
For 27-year-old Bonnie, SAS Australia was harder than she ever could’ve imagined.
(Image: Seven)
During a challenge called ‘Death by Water’, Bonnie felt her fear take hold. The test required the recruit to be strapped in a car, submerged into water and hold their breath for 40 seconds before swimming to safety, Bonnie felt fear take over her body.
“It was an overwhelming feeling I couldn’t control,” she explains. Tears streamed down her face as her body shook. It wasn’t until her fellow recruit, surfer Koby Abberton, reminded her why she was there, that she pulled herself together.
“Koby tapped my arm because I have a tattoo in my dad’s handwriting that says ‘keep punching, bub’,” she says.
“He just reminded me that ‘you know, you’ve got this, keep going.”
Bonnie has been in the public eye since she was 12 years old after winning Australia’s Got Talent in 2007. Since then, she’s gone on to star in soap drama Neighbours and win The Masked Singer. .
(Image: Seven)Bonnie has been in the public eye since she was 12 years old after winning Australia’s Got Talent in 2007.
Since then, she’s gone on to star in soap drama Neighbours and win The Masked Singer. Now, she’s ready to show the world another side of herself.
“I’ve been in the public eye since I was young but I’ve had lots of people around me with instructions on how to deal with it, what to feel and say. The most exciting thing about this show is there’s no one around,” she shares.
“I’m excited for people to see another side of me, not just the bubbly Bonnie that is here to make people smile and have a laugh. I’m there to prove something to myself and to the world, it’s just to say here I am, this is what I’m going to give.”
