Bear Grylls

Edward Michael "Bear" Grylls (born 7 June 1974) is a British past SAS trooper, survival expert, adventurer, and television presenter.

Grylls was born in Donaghadee, Northern Ireland on 7 June 1974.

His family has a strong cricketing background, his grandfather Neville Ford and great-great-grandfather William Augustus Ford having both been first-class cricketers.

He is the son of Conservative politician Sir Michael Grylls and his wife Sarah "Sally" (née Ford).

Her mother Patrica Smiles, Patricia Ford, Lady Fisher, was briefly an MP, succeeding her father; later she married an MP.

Grylls has one sibling, an elder sister, Lara Fawcett, who gave him the nickname 'Bear' when he was a week old.

He lived in Donaghadee until the age of four, when his family moved to Bembridge on the Isle of Wight.

From an early age, he learned to climb and sail with his father, who was a member of the Royal Yacht Squadron.

As a teenager, he learned to skydive and earned a second dan black belt in Shotokan karate.

He speaks English, Spanish, and French.

He is an Anglican, and has described his Christian faith as the "backbone" in his life: "You can't keep God out. He's all around us, if we're just still enough to listen."

From 1994–1997, he served in the Territorial Army with 21 SAS as a trooper.

There is some dispute over whether he was the youngest Briton to have done so, as he was preceded by James Allen, a climber holding dual Australian and British citizenship, who reached the summit in 1995 at age 22.

The record has since been surpassed by Jake Meyer and then Rob Gauntlett who summitted at age 19.

His time in the SAS ended as the result of a free fall parachuting accident in Kenya in 1996; his parachute failed to open, causing him to break three vertebrae.

To prepare for climbing at such high altitudes in the Himalayas, in 1997, Grylls became the youngest Briton to climb Ama Dablam, a peak once described by Sir Edmund Hillary as "unclimbable", although now the third most popular in the Himalayas for permitted expeditions.

On 16 May 1998, Grylls achieved his childhood dream of climbing to the summit of Mount Everest in Nepal, 18 months after breaking three vertebrae in a parachuting accident.

At 23, he was at the time among the youngest people to have achieved this feat.

Grylls married Shara Cannings Knight in 2000.

In 2000, Grylls led the team to circumnavigate the British Isles on jet skis, taking about 30 days, to raise money for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI).

He also rowed naked in a homemade bathtub along the Thames to raise funds for a friend who lost his legs in a climbing accident.

He studied Spanish and German at the University of the West of England, Bristol and at Birkbeck College, where he graduated with a 2:2 bachelor's degree, obtained part-time, in Hispanic studies in 2002.

After leaving school, Grylls hiked in the Himalayan mountains of Sikkim and West Bengal.

They have three sons, born in 2003, 2006 and 2009.

In 2003, he led a team of five, including his childhood friend, SAS colleague, and Mount Everest climbing partner Mick Crosthwaite, on an unassisted crossing of the north Atlantic Ocean, in an open rigid inflatable boat.

Grylls and his team traveled in an eleven-metre-long boat and encountered force 8 gale winds with waves breaking over the boat while passing through icebergs in their journey from Halifax, Nova Scotia to John o' Groats, Scotland.

In 2004, Grylls was awarded the honorary rank of lieutenant commander in the Royal Naval Reserve.

In 2005, alongside the balloonist and mountaineer David Hempleman-Adams and Lieutenant Commander Alan Veal, leader of the Royal Navy Freefall Parachute Display Team, Grylls created a world record for the highest open-air formal dinner party, which they did under a hot-air balloon at 25000 ft, dressed in full mess dress and oxygen masks.

To train for the event, he made over 200 parachute jumps.

This event was in aid of The Duke of Edinburgh's Award and The Prince's Trust.

He first drew attention after embarking on a number of adventures, including several world records in hostile environments, and then became widely known for his television series Man vs. Wild (2006–2011).

He is also involved in a number of wilderness survival television series in the UK and US, such as Running Wild with Bear Grylls and The Island with Bear Grylls.

In 2007, Grylls embarked on a record-setting Parajet paramotor in Himalayas near Mount Everest.

In July 2009, Grylls was appointed as The Scout Association’s youngest-ever Chief Scout of the United Kingdom and Overseas Territories at age 35, a post he has held for a second term since 2015.

Then in 2013 he was awarded the honorary rank of lieutenant colonel in the Royal Marines Reserve, and promoted to Honorary Colonel in June 2021.

In August 2015, Grylls left his 11-year-old son on Saint Tudwal's Island off the North Wales coast, as the tide approached, leaving him to be rescued by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) as part of their weekly practice missions.

The child was unharmed, though the RNLI later criticised Grylls for the stunt, saying its crew "had not appreciated" that a child would be involved.

Grylls used to be a vegan but now consumes a diet predominant in animal-based foods, fruits and honey.

In 2024 he commented to the Irish Times that he was proud to be an Irish citizen.

Grylls was educated at Eaton House, Ludgrove School and Eton College, where he helped start its first mountaineering club.