Simon Reeve has never shied away from taking risks but in doing so, he was left with a secret scar which he sees as a reminder of his close call with a whale shark.
The 51-year-old branded himself "an absolute fool" as he remembered the incident. At the time, the BBC Two star - who is back with another episode of Burma with Simon Reeve at 8pm this Sunday - was filming off the coast of New Guinea, as part of an episode centred around the Pacific Ocean's Coral Triangle.
Intrigued and determined to get the footage he needed, Simon jumped straight into the water after spotting the sharks and although they are known to be harmless, they are still considered to be the biggest fish in the sea.
Simon Reeve once recalled his close encounter with a whale shark which left him with a large scar (BBC/The Garden/Piers Leigh)"I’d seen them from a distance and thought they were cute and lovely – even if they were the size of single-decker buses", Simon said as he explained why he'd decided to swim with the shoal of sharks. He then recalled his shock as he got too close to one of the animals, adding to OK! Magazine: "I reckoned they would be soft and rubbery but actually it was like being hit by a ton of concrete when one of them collided with me."
This resulted in Simon being injured and he was left with a huge scar after the encounter, but he remained grateful for his luck as he pointed out the situation could have been worse. "I suffered a very large scar across my leg and it could have been so much worse. I’d been an absolute fool for getting so close", he concluded.
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Simon has journeyed into more than 120 countries throughout his career but this wasn't the first time he landed himself in trouble for the sake of his high-risk job.
One of his nature travels has led him straight to Russia in 2017, where he was arrested and thrown in a cell after he was accused of being a spy. This was partially witnessed by BBC Two viewers who watched the scenes on their screens in October that same year.
Looking back on the incident in April, 2023, on ITV's Lorraine, with a generous touch of humour, Simon detailed his "funny" experience and revealed what had really happened behind the cameras.
The adventurer and presenter was once thrown in a Russian cell by the KGB after being accused of spying (@simon_reeve/Instagram)
A white lie involving Her Majesty the Queen allowed him to return to his wife Anya Reeve and their son Jake (WireImage)"That was unfortunate", he simply stated to an incredulous Ranvir Singh. "We were creeping through some bushes trying to film a secret Russian military base in an unrecognised country called Transnistria", he remembered. The state of Transnistria is located between Moldova and Ukraine.
Convinced he wouldn't be spotted, Simon goaded to his team but was soon horrified to realise he had been found out. "I was just saying to the camera 'they'll never see us here' and they did. Some guys turned up in trench coats looking like comedy KGB people and they were. They still had the KGB there, the old secret police", he claimed.
While he was detained, Simon was ready to count the days by scratching them onto his cell wall but he was eventually released thanks to a shocking white lie and the state of Transnistria was clearly keen to avoid a diplomatic crisis: "We got released because somebody said I was related to the Queen of England."
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