Bear Grylls disclosed that Volodymyr Zelensky had misgivings about sampling British chocolate.
The 48-year-old survival specialist travelled to Ukraine to interview the 45-year-old Ukrainian president.
Along the journey, he experienced the effects of fighting and gained insight into the lives of common people.
Of course, there were other remarkable moments during his journey, but one in particular stands out to Grylls: how he broke the ice.
‘I was sitting there the night before, wondering, “How do I do this? How do I talk to President Zelensky? How do I interview the most hunted man on the planet?”,’ he began in an interview with Radio Times.
Then it occurred to him.
‘I’m just going to take a bar of chocolate and say, “Let’s walk and sit on a park bench. Let’s eat chocolate and talk about your life”.’
An SAS soldier and no stranger to physical risk, Grylls was understandably frightened.
Zelensky is a military commander in the midst of a warzone. How did their meeting transpire? Did Zelensky just send him a WhatsApp invitation?
Once Grylls assisted Ukrainian refugees in the United Kingdom through his education programme, there was a “kind of link” between the two. Hence, he approached the Ukrainian president.
‘It’s a serious business, getting to talk to him… He’s done a lot of interviews over Zoom before, but I wanted to see the real man, the guy away from the podium.’
Hence the Dairy Milk?
‘Yeah, I think chocolate is a great leveller! I’ve learned on Running Wild that being scared and sharing food are great connectors of people. You don’t have to be sharing scorpions, it can be a flask of tea – or a bar of chocolate. Those things, and the wild itself, do a lot of my job for me (as an interviewer), they let people open up and be honest.’
Nevertheless, things did not go as well as the celebrity had thought since even the chocolate was deemed a security concern.
‘When I offered it to Zelensky, one of his guys stepped in and said he shouldn’t be eating it,’ recalled Grylls.
‘I said, “Ok, I’ll go first, to show I’m not out to poison him,” and we all laughed. I gave some to the security guys, because everyone likes a little square of Dairy Milk, right?’
As a former actor and comedian, hw would you describe Zelensky?
Grylls described him as a’real people guy’, saying, ‘He listens, he’s honest, and he’s really human.’ Even though his English is excellent, he wanted to employ an interpreter, but I told him he should really try not to.
‘The fact that he sometimes isn’t speaking perfect English gives him a humility and a vulnerability, and you get a real insight into what he’s like as a human being.’
On the show, the President explores the streets of Kyiv with Bear Grylls while surrounded by many heavily armed but nervous-looking guards, which begs the question: does he become scared?
‘I said to him, “You’re being personally hunted by the world’s most feared regime. How does that feel?” And he was like, “Bear, thanks for reminding me!”,’ Grylls joked.
The President lives largely underground, Grylls also confirmed, and ‘he doesn’t get out of that bunker much.’
‘As soon as he does, he’s vulnerable to drone attack, even with all the drone jammers they put up in the air around him,’ he addd. ‘So at the end of our time together, he said it had been amazing just to be outside and to walk and talk.’
So, does Grylls think peace will prevail in Ukraine?
‘These are regular people who didn’t want to fight. As President Zelensky said to me, ultimately, 99.999% of people in the world are just good people who simply want to do their job, look after their family, see their friends, make a difference in their community, and live their lives.
‘He said 99% of Ukrainians are like that, 99% of Russians are like that. And you can have just one bad guy leading, and he can manipulate people through misinformation and turn people’s hearts.
‘But if you let people do what they naturally want to do, you’ll find that they are inherently good. The more you speak and communicate and bring people together, the less people want to fight. That’s the goal, isn’t it?’
Read Bear Grylls’ full interview at RadioTimes.com.
Source My Celebrity Life.
