celeb chat
Bella speaks to Jodie Ounsley about the success of the iconic TV show…
One of the most memorable ’90s Saturday night TV shows made a comeback last month – and we can’t get enough. Gladiators was a huge ITV hit when it first appeared on our screens back in 1992 and had a cult following until it ended in 2000.
Now it’s back, this time on the BBC, and it’s already a hit with up to 8.7m people tuning in. Some have even hailed it as saving Saturday night TV – and we can’t disagree.
The new cast of Gladiators are as impressive as their predecessors. There’s former firefighter turned bodybuilder Jamie Christian Johal who, standing at 6ft 5ins, has the moniker Giant. Then there’s former Team GB Sprinter and Olympic Bobsledder Montell Douglas, who has taken on the role of Fire, and former international athlete Matt Morsia who describes himself as a Legend – hence his name.
But the Gladiator who has really caught our eye is fast and strong Fury, aka Jodie Ounsley. Jodie – who was born profoundly deaf – has swapped the rugby pitch for the famous Gladiators arena and she’s already showing off her skills on the show.
Jodie, 22, is a former England Women’s Rugby Seven’s player and a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu British Champion. The sports star also has Gladiators in her blood, with her father taking part in the 2009 revival of the show, when she was just seven. She says, “The biggest reason [for signing up] is because my dad was a contender in a previous series, so Gladiators has been a big part of our family since I was little.
“I loved watching how physical the Gladiators were and watching my dad go through the process. He’s clearly been a massive influence and it’s pretty cool that I can do it too. I was always in awe of the Gladiators’ strength and power and now I am one!
“The new series is savage, exciting and fresh. I think it’s cool because they’ve kept it very much like the original but they’ve also added a really nice modern twist on it. I think people will like that it’s not completely changed or that we’ve tried to make it something that isn’t. We have just tried to expand on something that was already great.”
Jodie’s deafness was discovered at birth, and she is unable to hear in either ear. She says, “My parents were advised for me to have a cochlear implant when I was 13 months old – as far as I am aware I was the youngest person to have a cochlear implant in the UK at the time. From there I went to The Elizabeth Foundation for speech therapy and weekly rehab and me and my family went out to America to the John Tracy clinic for more speech therapy.”
Jodie loved sports from a young ag
