If people can save their shiny floor drama for a day when I’m not out and about in future that would be great, thanks.
Anyway Giant (Jamie Bigg) is leaving Gladiators, he did a post on Instagram suggesting basically he was asked to do something that didn’t align with his values so he’s off (you can read the story on BBC News). The first Gladiator to leave! It’s probably not quite Jet leaving, but he’s certainly one of the bigger (as it were) faces of the revival.
Two, well three things of interest:
- What was the thing he was asked to do he would not? On the Discord I joked American Gladiators, this got no reaction but probably would have got quite a big laugh on Have I Got News For You.
- They didn’t have social media in the nineties, but now we’re going to have things play out through he said/she said comments on social media for this sort of thing now aren’t we?
- Many of the Gladiators turn up on each other’s social videos in their non-Gladiator guises – he’s been in plenty of Legend’s (Matt Morsia) Mattdoesfitness videos, for example. Does this make this sort of thing politically difficult going forward? Is this going to set a number of dominos toppling? There were a lot of injuries last year, are we going to hear of many other Glads leaving in the next couple of weeks before filming?
The impression I got was that it was a bit of a difficult third album to film last year but they seemed to edit it together quite well. Is this where it begins to fall apart? I thought it would be three and out but the numbers have held a lot better than anticipated.
The Daily Mirror have an article with a quote from him that seems to suggest it was to do with his partner have an OF account. A real shame he’s leaving but I’m surprised it’s taken four series for someone to leave.
I can certainly understand Hungry Bear’s trepidation and Jamie feeling a bit hard done by if that’s the case – no easy answers.
I’ve just been pointed to https://www.gladiators-experience.co.uk/ – the official Gladiators Experience. In the vein of the old “one hour, £50” gag, this is “75 minutes, £44.50”, which is not too bad, though there are only five different events for you to play (and replay until time expires). There is an optional upsell to VIP – another £95-ish gets you an official uniform, a medal and a video highlight reel.
There are Gladiators meet and greets featuring both Glads I and Glads III glads – I’m not sure if there are Glads II glads in there as well, I don’t remember their names. One hour, of which you’ll probably get a minute and a bit’s worth of attention including an autograph and one (1) photo, £35. Tying this back to the post, Giant is listed as one of the Glads III glads making an appearance on some of the days, so there you go. If you want to.