Bear Grylls OBE revealed he accepts the label of ‘the biggest TV flop in history’ on night two of his Never Give Up! tour in Newcastle on Thursday.

The former SAS trooper’s latest show Bear Hunt will air on Netflix in 2025 with Holly Willoughby already confirmed as host.

Bear Hunt will see twelve celebrities dropped into a Central American jungle as prey for one of the world’s most fearsome predators.

He joked of the show: ‘I drop 12 celebrities in the middle of the jungle and I get like twenty-odd days to track them down. What can possibly go wrong?’

Survival expert Bear, who opened his live tour in Glasgow’s Armadillo venue on Thursday, revealed that he has made around twenty-five TV shows that no one has ever heard of.

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Bear Grylls OBE, 49, has revealed he accepts the label of ‘the biggest TV flop in history’ on night two of his Never Give Up! tour in Newcastle on Thursday

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The former SAS trooper’s latest show Bear Hunt will air on Netflix in 2025 with Holly Willoughby already confirmed as host

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View gallery

Bear Hunt will see the celebs dropped into a Central American jungle as prey for one of the world’s most fearsome predators

Bear told his packed-out Newcastle audience: ‘I actually listed it out to [my children] only a few weeks ago, all of the TV shows we’ve had that have been canned after not just one season but sometimes like a couple of episodes in.

‘And it’s been no good, pulled off air. It was something like 25 separate shows that they never even heard of.

‘People remember the three, four, or five shows that were produced multiple seasons and win the good stuff and worked. You only get the good stuff by going through the bad stuff.

‘My middle teenager who doesn’t miss a trick looked at me and said: ‘So, technically this probably makes you the biggest TV flop in history. I said: ‘Thank you very much – you can always rely on your kids to bring you down to Earth!

He added: ‘I’m proud of failures. I’m never afraid to share them. I wear them like scars and marks. We’re doing something right.’

He said: ‘We’ve had the same crew pretty well from the beginning, which in the world of TV is almost unheard of.

‘Great friends, we’ve done life we’ve had children in different stages and it’s kind of being there for each other and those friendships really mean everything and actually, as we speak right now, as most of them are in Central America in the jungle prepping [for Bear Hunt].

Bear also revealed during the show that he took a souvenir from the summit of Everest.

He said: ‘I took up with me a little bottle, filled it full of snow and what happens, it turns to water. I got four of them. And I love to kind of look at it you know?

‘It’s interesting what it symbolises for me, but sometimes when I’m having difficult days or harder days, I look at it and for me it stands for dreams that are definitely worth fighting for.’

Tickets to Bear’s Never Give Up! live tour are available to purchase here.

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Survival expert Bear, who opened his live tour in Glasgow’s Armadillo venue on Thursday, revealed that he has made around twenty-five TV shows that no one has heard of

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View gallery

Bear revealed: ‘I actually listed it out only a few weeks ago, all of the TV shows we’ve had that have been canned after not just one season but sometimes like a couple of episodes in’

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View gallery

He added: ‘I’m proud of failures. I’m never afraid to share them. I wear them like scars and marks. We’re doing something right’

Including Bear Hunt, an eye-watering 18 of Bear’s shows have made it to our television screens.

Bear’s most successful series is the ongoing Running Wild With Bear Grylls which premiered on NBC in 2014. In it, Bear takes celebrities on a two-day trip in the wilderness.

The programme has aired eight series over its ten-year run and has seen celebrities such as Zac Efron, Kate Winslet, and Barack Obama star.

His second-most successful is Born Survivor: Bear Grylls, which began in 2006 on Channel 4 and went on to air seven seasons over five years..

It is known as Man vs. Wild elsewhere featured Grylls dropped into inhospitable places, showing viewers how to survive.

Bear’s first programme was Escape To The Legion in 2005.

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Bear’s most successful series is the ongoing Running Wild With Bear Grylls which premiered on NBC in 2014 (pictured with Natalie Portman)

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His second-most successful is Born Survivor: Bear Grylls, which began in 2006 on Channel 4

The four-part Channel 4 series Grylls followed Grylls and eleven other ‘recruits’ as they took part in a shortened re-creation of the French Foreign Legion’s basic desert training in the Sahara.

In 2010, Bear came out with Worst Case Scenario which aired on Discovery in the US. Twelve episodes were produced before the show was cancelled.

Bear made four specials under the title Bear’s Wild Weekend for Channel 4 in 2011 which was broadcast over the Christmas holiday that year.

Each special featured Bear taking celebrity on two-day adventures to a natural site such as the rainforest in the Canary Islands, and the Dolomite Mountains.

Grylls hosted Get Out Alive With Bear Grylls a reality competition series filmed in New Zealand, which premiered on NBC in 2013.

In 2013’s Bear Grylls: Escape From Hell Bear reveals the true life stories of ordinary people trapped in extraordinary situations of survival.

The six-episode series premiered on the Discovery Channel in the US.

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President Barack Obama has been among the guests on Running Wild with Bear Grylls

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Bear made four specials under the title Bear’s Wild Weekend for Channel 4 in 2011 which was broadcast over the Christmas holiday that year.

The following year, he presented The Island With Bear Grylls first shown on Channel 4 in 2014.

In 2015, six-part ITV series Bear Grylls: Mission Survive aired featuring eight celebrities on a twelve-day survival mission. The programme returned for a second series in 2016.

Also in 2015, China’s Dragon TV ordered a Grylls-fronted adventure series titled Survivor Games. The series featured Grylls and eight Chinese celebrities.

Bear tried his hand at children’s entertainment in 2016, presented CITV series Bear Grylls Survival School.

The series began airing in 2016 and a second series was scheduled to begin in 2017 but never aired.

In 2018, ITV began airing a new series similar to his to Wild series titled Bear’s Mission. This show focuses on one British celebrity taking an overnight adventure with Bear each episode.

Later that year, Bear went on to release an interactive series on streaming service Netflix called You Vs. Wild.

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In 2020, Bear presented the revival of the Eco-Challenge series, which is titled World’s Toughest Race: Eco-Challenge Fiji

In 2020, Bear presented the revival of the Eco-Challenge series, which is titled World’s Toughest Race: Eco-Challenge Fiji.

It involved teams from around the world competing in an adventure race, which took place in Fiji.

Bear Grylls Wild Adventure premiered in spring 2021, two-part ITV series featuring Jonny Wilkinson and Nicola Adams, respectively.

In July 2022, Bear appeared in Running Wild With Bear Grylls: The Challenge his first spin-off. The series returned for a second series in 2023.

Bear Grylls Meets President Zelenskyy aired on Channel 4 in 2023 and saw Bear travel to Ukraine to meet President Zelenskyy and civilians caught up in the war with Russia.

Prior to Bear Hunt, Bear’s most recent series was eight-part competition I Survived Bear Grylls co-hosted with comedian Jordan Conley.