Matt Hancock has said an interrogation on Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins was one of “most difficult things” he has had ever done.
The 45-year-old politician had been involved in the Government’s response to the Covid pandemic in his three-year stint as health secretary before he resigned.
Hancock has made it to the final of the Channel 4 series alongside TV personality Danielle Lloyd, singer Gareth Gates, athlete Perri Shakes-Drayton and Love Island star Teddy Soares.
Sunday’s episode will see the five contestants face a specialist team of interrogators during the jungle phase of SAS selection in Thung Ui, north Vietnam.
Over 14 hours, they will be questioned about a cover story they are using to hide their true mission and will be put in what the show called “extreme stress positions”.
Talking about this part of the experience, Hancock said: “It was really one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done and a very unpleasant experience.
“The only way through it was to have the same attitude that I had during the whole course, to just keep sticking around for a few more minutes all the way through, even when the interrogators were trying to rile me.”
Gates also said it was “definitely the worst experience of my life” and he had never “felt pain” similar to the trail.
“When you are held in those stress positions for hours, it’s torture. I’ve seen the show and I’ve watched it on the screen but you just aren’t able to understand the pain of holding those positions, which look so simple,” he added.
“Also, these noises that they put in your ears, you become extremely anxious. It isn’t just the coupling of the physical pain of the stress positions with the anxiousness.
“The sounds make you feel awful, it really is unbearable. It was really horrendous.”
Hancock lost the Tory whip over his appearance on I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! last year, where he came third.
He stepped away from his position in June 2021 after it emerged he had broken his own Covid-19 guidance by kissing and embracing aide Gina Coladangelo in his office.
Hancock has also previously announced that he would step down at next election.
Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins airs on Channel 4 at 9pm on Sunday.
Related: Watch: Moment Matt Hancock gets called a ‘weasel-faced c***’ in Celebrity SAS