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Exclusive: Firass slams SAS critics: 'I don't care whatsoever'
Aussie star Firass Dirani has a delivered a brutal message to critics of his appearance on SAS Australia – fans and co-stars alike.
The so-called ‘villain’ of the show revealed to Yahoo Lifestyle that he has no regrets about his actions during the course, saying he ‘doesn’t care’ about criticism over the ‘poor attitude’ that regularly landed him and fellow contestants in hot water with the trainers.
“I don’t care whatsoever about anybody’s perspective,” he tells Yahoo Lifestyle, saying the ‘haters’ don’t touch him.
“Only the dregs hate, the lowest hate, the lowest common denominator hates.”
It’s an attitude he has made more than obvious on his Instagram page, riling up fans of the show but also gaining support with his devil-may-care attitude to the fallout.
The House Husband’s claims his decision to challenge the SAS trainers on occasion gave the format some much-needed spice.
“Without my conflict, what was going to happen?” he wonders. “[The other contestants] were just going to comply for the entire series. What's the fun in that?”
“These guys were taking it so seriously like it meant the world to them… they forgot that it was a show.”
The actor claims he ‘wanted’ the brutal punishments doled out by the SAS commanders for his cheeky comments, comments that have seen him branded a ‘villain’ by viewers and co-stars alike.
“I wanted that for myself. I wanted that pain, I wanted that punishment, I wanted to go in and see what I was made of,” he says.
‘It wasn’t bad’: Firass downplays group punishments
Despite being slammed for his inability to ‘shut up’ as fellow contestants asked him to, the actor downplays the punishments doled out to the group as a result of his misdeeds, saying they have been overhyped.
“The punishments… they were in the water for 2 minutes and then they went for a run for 250 m,” he points out. “It wasn't a bad punishment.”
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“Why were people on the show? We were there to be punished. I prepared myself to be punished all day.”
Other contestants like Eden Dally have told Yahoo Lifestyle that Firass’ attitude rubbed contestants up the wrong way, with the conditions and existing challenges on the program more than enough ‘punishment’ for the actor’s co-stars.
‘He’s obsessed with masculinity’: Firass slams Shannon Ponton
Since the show has screen last week, Firass has been in the firing line, with contestant Shannon Ponton this week labelling him a ‘sociopath’ and trainer Mark 'Billy' Billingham calling him a ‘pain in the arse’.
Firass hit back at Shannon’s comments saying the trainer is ‘obsessed with masculinity’ and that he is likely still embarrassed over a challenge in which Firass showed him up.
“We had beastings [an extreme exercise regime, held at night] together, they put me up against him and I killed it,” Firass claims. “The guy is meant to be an expert in his field and I killed him, I put him to shame.”
“Not only did I keep up with him, I was leaping ahead. For him that obviously played on his mind… and I think that may have affected his behaviour and is still affecting his behaviour.”
Firass says the trainers ‘manipulated the situation’
He says he is more than happy with the final edit, though points out his the situations unfolded with a little help from the trainers, admitting the on-ground scenarios were ‘manipulated’ and that he ‘absolutely’ attracted more heat than the other contestants.
“They were manipulating the situation absolutely,” he. “I saw it from the start I saw the inner workings of how the show is manipulated.”
“[The trainers] created the division, they wanted to break me,” he continues. “They always pointed the narrative at me, or my behaviour so that animosity kept building and that division kept getting bigger.”
Firass describes himself as ‘an ox’, saying fans and co-stars criticism doesn’t touch him and refuting the possibility that his reputation could suffer long term from his stint on the show.
“I’m an ox physically and I’m an ox mentally,” he says. “I don’t care, its just a TV show. If these people want to get emotional, get their knickers tied in a bunch, I have an army behind me.”
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