Two contestants of the reality series 'Naked and Afraid' are dishing on what it was like having to survive naked in the extreme wilderness and how they dealt with being naked in front of a bunch of strangers.
Gwen Grimes and Jonathan Bonessi joined 10 other survivalists to endure the harsh conditions of the savanna desert in South Africa for 40 days and now they are sharing their experience of participating in 'Naked and Afraid XL' to Fox News.
"You need to have your survival skills on point if you're going to go out there, it's no joke. It is life and death. You really need to know what you're doing," Grimes said.
"It's easy to lose your cool and make rash decisions, but you really got to be deliberate with everything you do out there," Bonessi added. "Because any little misstep can put you in the ground."
One of the most important survival skills was learning what to eat, and that came quickly to the contestants.
"You learn real quick what you need to do out there because you look at pictures of the plant life and the animals out there," Bonessi said. "And then when you're naked and you're starving and you see it and you're like, 'Oh, what was that thorn supposed to look like that I can eat?' So you pick it up quickly and you remember and you could see them from a mile away after a while. Like yeah, I can eat that."
Bonessi added that there were times when he felt like leaving the show but he had a strategy in place- to never admit it. He shut down negative self-talk and kept telling himself he was going to get out of there. Grimes said that it all came down to a strong mental game
"You've got to be able to weather through a whole bunch of storms, both personal and interpersonal, and be able to navigate different situations that are thrown at you on a daily basis," Grimes said. "And if you can't keep that mental strength, you're going to end up tapping out."
It remains to be seen whether or not they exited the show early but the contestants did eventually return to civilization, and it was a "wild" experience, Bonessi said.
"That first time you put socks on, for me anyway, it was like a religious experience," he said. "I felt like I had armor on my feet, just from a thin layer of cloth and nothing like it. Nothing like putting on clothes for the first time in that long."
During the interview, the conversation inevitably turned to what it was like being in the nude, and what the pair would tell people who said they would never be able to do it. Grimes said it all came down to mindset.
"You can do anything you set your mind to, it's all mental. You just got to figure out the mental game of it and punch through it," Grimes said.
Bonessi added: "I mean, nobody ... well, I shouldn't say anybody, but most people don't want to get naked in front of a bunch of strangers. But once you take your clothes off and you're naked in front of a bunch of strangers, you see how it feels, it’s too late.”
Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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