SAS Australia’s Firass & Shannan’s On-Air Feud Has Spilled Over IRL, Here’s What We Know

In almost every episode, Firass’ bad attitude and misbehaviour has lead to the recruits to being punished with physical challenges, causing a huge amount of tension between him and his fellow teammates. So much so, that the on-air feuding has now spilt over into real life.

In an interview with TV WEEK, fellow recruit and the Biggest Loser Trainer, Shannan Ponton explained his frustration with Firass labelling him a “Smart mouth” and “Juvenile”.

“His smart mouth and back-chat sent the entire unit into a freezing creek, at dusk, while he stood dry and smug alongside the DS [directing staff]. In my eyes, a lame attempt at juvenile humour had ruined the first day.”

In a later interview with news.com.au, Shannan again shared his poor opinion of Firass’ behaviour, “I honestly believe that he’s a sociopath in his behaviour.”

“Time and time again, we said, ‘Listen, mate, you’ve got to stop this behaviour.’ And he said, ‘What behaviour?’ . . . It was as infuriating as it was confusing. At no stage did he ever assume responsibility for his actions. At no stage did he say sorry.”

“Some of the girls said to him, ‘Firass, all we want is an apology for what you did to us today,’ and it was never forthcoming. Even at the end, he never assumed responsibility for what he’d done. It was always some weird, inarticulate way to put together some story that didn’t make any sense,” explained Shannan.

Now, Firass as hit back in an interview with the Daily Mail, not defending his poor attitude on the show, but questioning Shannan’s comments and having a dig at him for his tattoos.

“I find it strange where this vile aggressive labelling behaviour is coming from?” Firass told the publication. “I suspect there’s more prejudice against me than I imagined.”

Adding: “Feels like a redneck to me. Him and his followers. That’s called a line in the sand.”

“What’s with his Maori tattoos? You’re embarrassing a whole culture. You are not worthy of such ancestral powerful artwork. You don’t even fall on the coat-tails of such warriors. You culture vulture.”

Just last week, after ep 2 aired, Firass blamed poor editing for making him appear as a “villain” on the show. In an Instagram story, he claimed he knew he would be painted as the bad guy, “I knew it. I knew they were gonna make me into the villain. There has to be a villain, ladies and gentleman, and lo and behold, right here, this is it.”

However, SAS Australia directing staff Mark ‘Billy’ Billingham dismissed his claim telling news.com.au: “He should be actually grateful to be edited the way they did. He’s a lot worse than that.”

According to the DS, Firass “came across as arrogant” and “had a terrible attitude”.

“It came to the point where the rest of the celebrities were getting really fed up with him. That’s not a showpiece – he really was messing up all the time and he could not keep his mouth shut, no matter what you said to him.”

“He drew attention to himself for all the wrong reasons” constantly roll his eyes when being interviewed or spoken to by the SAS Australia instructors.

“They’ve more than fairly edited him to be honest because he was a pain in the a**e, I mean, he’s a nice guy, don’t get me wrong . . . but he’s not a personality that you’d want to go out drinking with, to be honest. He’s a bit of a pain.”

Both Shannan and Firass are two of remaining 13 recruits left on SAS Australia so I’m sure some more tea will be split in coming weeks as things continue to heat up.