Ulrika Jonsson thinks joining 'SAS: Who Dares Wins' was like pressing a "reset button".
Ulrika Jonsson
The 54-year-old TV presenter was at a particularly low ebb in her life when she received an invite from Channel 4, and although she was "fit for nothing" at the time, Ulrika was determined to take on the challenge.
Ulrika - who divorced her third husband, Brian Monet, in 2019 - said: "It's September 2020 and I can feel a darkness descending.
"Dejection, sadness, despondency and bleakness was enveloping my heart and mind, triggered by a childhood trauma and an affair of the heart.
"It felt like too much to bear and once again I found myself all at sea, without direction, no anchorage and a reluctance to find a way forward. In freefall.
"Then, late one night, I get an email asking if I would consider being a recruit on Channel 4’s 'Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins'. I presumed it was a joke."
The TV star - who has children Cameron, 26, Bo, 21, Martha, 17, and Malcolm, 13 - wasn't very familiar with the hit show at the time.
However, she admits it came along at the perfect moment in her life.
She told The Sun newspaper: "I had never watched much of the show. Danger and terror doesn’t entertain me, it frightens me.
"So the snippets I had seen would set my heart racing to such an extent I’d have to switch channels for fear of being physically sick at what others were being forced to endure.
"But at the time I needed a way of pressing some kind of reset button."
Ulrika found the show to be a huge challenge - but she also relished the experience, describing it as "profound".
She said: "It was the singular, most profound experience of my entire life, without exception.
"It forced introspection, reassessment, establishment of needs and boundaries, emotional and psychological goals.
"Physically, I learnt what my little body is capable of and perhaps what it is not. I learnt where my strength comes from and how I need to nurture it.
"I learnt that I am more than just a parent, more than just a mum, more than just a woman. That I may be too much for some but am never not enough."
Tagged in Ulrika Jonsson