SHE had trench foot, bruises from head to toe and lost a load of weight – but Montana Brown insists competing on Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins helped her get pregnant.
The former Love Islander reckons that surviving for more than a week in the jungles of Vietnam on the gruelling Channel 4 show left her in better shape than ever.
And after struggling for months to conceive, the 28-year-old fell pregnant just days after being reunited with partner Mark O’Connor following filming in September last year.
Speaking exclusively to The Sun on Sunday, Montana confessed: “I was trying to have a baby for so long before SAS and literally in the few days that I got back I conceived.
“My body was obviously in peak physical condition. It was like clockwork.
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“I wasn’t even stressed about getting pregnant.
"I genuinely think it was just because my body was at the peak of its physical fitness.
“You’re obviously on such a healthy diet. It’s just protein, carbs and healthy food.
"And it proves that physical exercise is so good for you.
“I think that show just reset everything. So yeah, an SAS baby.”
Montana, who shot to fame on Love Island in 2017, got engaged to rugby player turned estate executive Mark in April.
The couple welcomed son Jude three months later and Montana admits the speed at which she fell pregnant sparked a cheeky joke from her husband-to-be.
Montana — who viewers are watching compete against celebs including ex-footballer Jermaine Pennant and former Health Secretary Matt Hancock on the show — said with a laugh: “Do you know what’s funny?
"My partner is always like, ‘Are you sure it’s not Jermaine Pennant’s?’.
“Because they take your dates from the day of your last period.
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"So when I was like, ‘Oh yeah, I’m X amount of weeks’, Mark said, ‘But you were on SAS then!’
“But obviously it’s not Jermaine Pennant’s! That’s a joke.”
Montana was one of 16 contestants who put themselves at the mercy of a team of former Special Forces hardmen headed by lead instructor “Billy” Billingham, a jungle warfare specialist.
Their regime — a snapshot of what real recruits face during the SAS selection process — pushes pampered showbiz personalities to their limits and beyond.
As celebs tackled zip wires, a tear gas chamber, Montana even had to slug it out with a reality rival star, Towie’s Amber Turner, in a boxing bout.
She says filming the show was the toughest test of her life.
“Honestly, I would rather give birth again,” she said.
“Childbirth is easier than the stuff we were doing.
"I gave birth with no pain relief, so I can wholeheartedly say that, yeah, for me the SAS experience was way harder.
“The toughest thing is that you never know when it’s going to end.
"That was what I really struggled with.
“I hated that you’d work really, really hard and you would work to your absolute maximum capacity and then you’d find out that you were only a fraction of the way through the challenge.
“It’s relentless and you do really have to mentally try to get past it.
“I definitely learned that I should challenge myself more and push myself more.
“It’s only when you push yourself to these limits and you do these amazing experiences that you get out of your comfort zone.
"I’ve never felt more proud of myself.”
It was a leap of faith for a reality star more accustomed to five-star holidays and Champagne-fuelled parties.
But Montana felt she had something to prove after Love Island.
She admits she was “naive” when she made her telly debut on the hit ITV2 dating show, but revealed she was determined to smash the notion that reality stars are all spoiled, self-obsessed wannabes.
“Love Island wasn’t scary,” Montana said. “I was really young and had no fears.
"I thought, ‘Oh, this will just be a laugh. I’ll go back to a job when I get back’.
“I had no concept of what I was actually doing. I was quite naive, so I had no fears whatsoever.
“Whereas with SAS, being a bit more self-aware, I was like, ‘If I come off as a sissy and leave in the first episode, I’m going to be really embarrassed’.
“I think people look down on reality stars and think they are not made of tough stuff and give up quite easily.
“Most people would assume they’d just tap out when the going gets rough.
“So I wanted to prove to people that I do have grit and perseverance, and when I put my mind to something I can do it.”
Montana proved her doubters wrong by lasting longer than some of the toughest guys on the show, including The Wanted singer Siva Kaneswaran, 34, and former Liverpool and Stoke winger Jermaine, 40.
And she admits that despite Matt Hancock, 45, being considered a villain by millions across the country, her experience of how tough it can be in the public eye led her to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Montana was left devastated in 2019 when her friend and fellow Love Islander Mike Thalassitis took his own life.
It has given her a unique perspective on coping with the pressures of fame and the online hate that comes with it.
“Matt Hancock was a weird one, a weird casting,” she said. “I definitely didn’t see that coming.
“It’s really hard because I’m in an industry where you can get a lot of hate for certain things.
“I’ve had people in my life take their own life from having not nice things said about them.
"It is like online bullying that happened to Matt.
“So I always like to take people as individuals.”
Montana was shocked by the hatred towards the MP, who was forced to resign from the Government after The Sun exposed him breaking his own Covid rules by cheating on his wife during the pandemic.
Even an innocent video Montana posted of him dancing alongside her as the celebs partied at their hotel in Vietnam sparked a vicious backlash online.
“Everyone was like, ‘You know he is disgusting. You’re in a video with him? Blah, blah, blah’,” she said.
“I completely get why people are annoyed. But it was a TV show.
“It’s not any of our places to exclude people and be horrible to people.
“You just have to take people as they are on the show and ignore everything about where they come from and what they’ve done.
“I was never going to hate on him and be hurtful. It would be unprofessional for me to be like that.
“We will never know what it’s like for him having gone through that.”
That’s not to say that Montana excused Matt’s lockdown behaviour, where he was caught on CCTV canoodling with his then aide, Gina Coladangelo — breaking social distancing rules.
“Obviously, it was so wrong on so many levels and it was at a time where so many were really struggling mentally,” she said.
“People lost their loved ones. It did affect so many people.
“But, equally, a show like this is work. You have to show up and treat everyone the same and as a human being.”
While Montana was able to ignore the online abuse, there was nowhere to hide in the jungle from the ex-Special Forces soldiers, known as directing staff, who treat the celebs like any other recruit.
Orders are delivered at maximum volume, peppered with abuse and swearing.
Montana said: “I’ve never been shouted at like that in my whole life. I’ve never had someone scream in my face.”
But she has nothing but respect for the instructors who put her through hell.
“I would sum up the experience as genuinely one of the best of my life,” she said.
“It’s not about who anyone is, it’s just how hard you can try.
“You can really make these moments some of your proudest if you let your guard down and give in to the process.”
