Gladiators ready! After more than 15 years off our screens, the BBC has announced it is rebooting the original show which will see a new crop of ‘superhumans’ compete against contestants in the ‘ultimate test of speed and strength’.
Presented by Bradley Walsh and his son Barney, the new Gladiators include Fury, Jodie Ounsley, a jiu jitsu champ and rugby player who is deaf, Sabre, Sheli McCoy a weightlifting champion and Phantom, Toby Olubi, a former member of the GB Bobsleigh team.
The original ITV show, which ran for eight series before ending in 2000 and drew in 14 million viewers, made household names of the eponymous Gladiators, who included Jet, Lightning, Wolf and Hunter.
So what happened to the stars after the curtain fell? Despite their fame, they were only paid £750 per episode and while some, like Lightning and Hunter, stayed in the world of fitness and bodybuilding, others followed a diverse range of careers, from Christian missionary to psychotherapist. Two even served time in prison. Here’s what happened to the Gladiators after they left the arena…
From star to scandal
Shadow (Jefferson King, 62)
At his peak, Shadow was a demi-god in spandex trunks and a cropped vest who would strut onstage in front of 10,000 near-hysterical fans to the strains of Edwin Starr’s War. ‘Shadow was probably the greatest Gladiator. People just loved him,’ one of his co-stars observed.
Yet he always had his demons. Born in London, after moving to New York as a youngster, he became addicted to crack cocaine in his teens. He got clean after moving back to the UK, where he started making waves as a bodybuilder, joining Gladiators in 1992. However he was sacked in 1995 after a drugs test showed he had taken anabolic steroids. That year he was caught cheating on his wife Olivia while she was pregnant with twins. They later divorced.
Jefferson King aka Shadow in Gladiators (left) and pictured now near his home in North London (right)
King had a cameo role in Spice World in 1997 and worked for a while as a wrestler, but quickly went back to drugs, initially funding his habit by working as a manual labourer.
There was also a stint as a gravedigger in Greenford, West London, during which he slept on friends’ sofas. Mostly though he smoked crack and heroin. He recalled: ‘I had become a full-time crackhead. I lived in the darkness and dug holes so deep I could not get out. I was very skinny and looked terrible. People would say, ‘you look a bit like Shadow off Gladiators’. I was too ashamed to admit I was him.’
King went to prison for brief periods every year for eight years. Then in 2009 he enrolled in a rehab course, Intuitive Recovery, and got clean, starting to teach at the course. However, last year he was sentenced to six years and three months in prison after admitting two counts of blackmail for his part in a plot over a drugs debt. He threatened to break a man’s legs with a hammer and demanded £1,000 from his victim’s ex-wife and brother for his safe return. He has since been released on licence.
Shadow wasn’t the only Gladiator to spend time behind bars. In 1998 Mike Ahearne, better known as Warrior, was jailed for 15 months for corruption and attempting to pervert the course of justice after becoming involved with a criminal gang in his home city of Liverpool.
In a recent interview, Shadow said: ‘I have always worked in prison, some sort of job and people have always got on well with me. I suppose they were the ones who grew up watching Gladiators so I must have left a fond memory in their mind.’
He is hoping to now make a living as an artist, saying: ‘I can draw anything. I am looking at getting into tattooing.’ He also works as a personal trainer.
Stuntwoman friend to Hollywood stars
Blaze (Eunice Huthart, 57)
Former McDonald’s manager Eunice Huthart was a competitor on the show in 1994 — and won. The following year she won a kickboxing championship, then became a Gladiator, the first UK contestant to do so. After the show ended she found work as a stunt double in films and stood in for actresses including Milla Jovovich, Famke Janssen and Uma Thurman, with her film credits including GoldenEye, Avengers and Titanic.
Stunt double Eunice Huthart aka Blaze in Gladiators (left) and pictured now (right)
She became friends with Angelina Jolie, who she has frequently doubled for and is reportedly godmother to her oldest daughter with Brad Pitt, Shiloh.
Eunice now works as a stunt choreographer, including for DC’s Justice League and The Flash film. She revealed in 2007 that she had been treated for cervical cancer.
Gladiator went from Spandex to God
Ace (Warren Furman, 51)
One Gladiator who avoids fan conventions is Warren Furman, known as Ace. ‘It’s no fun getting into the spandex outfit when you’ve got more hair on your back than your head,’ he jokes. ‘None of us can fight ageing. It’s a bit embarrassing to spend 12 hours signing autographs while listening to people say: ‘Cor look at the state of him!’ Today he lives in York with wife Dionne and their two children, and runs a Christian ministry, Ace Active.
Recruited as a bodybuilder, he admits he took steroids before starting on the show in 1996. ‘As a teenager my idols were Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone. I knew I’d have to take steroids if I wanted my body to look like that. It was accepted at the time that you could not take part in competitive bodybuilding without them.
‘People do say that the steroids aren’t addictive. Maybe the truth is more that you get addicted to the attention and success which comes with being the size you are when you take steroids.’
Warren Furman or Ace in Gladiators (left) and pictured on This Morning in 2019 (right)
He stopped taking them after being warned by producers that everyone would be tested.
A stormy romance with glamour model Katie Price kept him in the tabloids in the late 90s and the pair were briefly engaged, before splitting acrimoniously with Furman admitting: ‘We were both deriving our identities from being relevant in the media. We were both selling stories.’
After the series ended in 2000, Furman initally worked in the building trade before embarking on a spiritual voyage and finding God.
‘I used to worship myself, I thought I was fantastic. I have now turned to God’s grace. I am a Gladiator of the gospel,’ he said.
He still goes to reunions with the other Gladiators, who are all friends. ‘There was a lot of camaraderie,’ he says. ‘We do get together from time to time socially and there is genuine friendship.
‘There is a lot of nostalgia for Gladiators. I’m always surprised by how interested people are in us still and in how things turned out.’
The gymnast who became a therapist
Jet (Diane Youdale, 52)
A GB national gymnast and trained dancer, Diane Youdale suffered bulimia as a teenager.
She became one of the most popular Gladiators but left the show in 1996 after fracturing her neck on the Pyramid during the show’s live event at Wembley Arena.
Diana Youdale (Jet) was one of the most popular Gladiators (left) and later became a Pilates instructor and then trained as a psychotherapist
She became a Pilates instructor then trained as a psychotherapist, landing a stint on Big Brother’s Bit On The Side, where she analysed the housemates. She has also appeared as a presenter on BBC Tees and on Look North and Inside Out.
‘Being famous was never on my trajectory. I hated it,’ she has said. ‘You know how I’d do the hair flick and cartwheels and the naff dancing? There was a reason for it. When the camera was coming to me, I wouldn’t stand still… when you’re moving, people can’t look at your cellulite.’
Currently single, she added: ‘It’s Jet that’s famous. Diane is a private person.’
Ulrika’s hunk still in great shape
Hunter (James Crossley, 50)
That beautiful blonde hair is long gone, and James Crossley is no longer quite the beefcake he was when he joined the show at 19 as an ambitious young bodybuilding champion. Yet the man who famously dated original Gladiators host Ulrika Jonsson following the breakdown of her first marriage, is still in formidable shape and runs a personal training business — as well as yoga and ‘gong bath’ practices.
He dabbled in acting following his Gladiators stint and last year appeared on Channel 4’s reality show The Circle, impersonating an NHS nurse.
Comparing his fitness now to when he starred on Gladiators, James admitted that it is ‘very different’.
James Crossley known as Hunter in Gladiators (left), pictured now at Battersea Dogs and Cats Home (right)
‘When I did Gladiators I was a machine,’ he said. ‘I was training twice a day, once with the weights, once with the events training.’
Panto ‘Baddie’ turned gym owner
Wolf (Michael Van Wijk, 71)
Bodybuilder Michael Van Wijk was the villain of the show who loved to be hated.
After eight series, he earned a fortune with corporate gigs and panto and appeared on TV in the show London’s Burning.
He became a regular on the cage fighting scene and also used to compete at national level in jiu jitsu championships, going on to run a gym in Bromley, South East London. He later emigrated to New Zealand, where he owned a chain of gyms which he sold in 2015 and is now retired.
Michael Van Wijk aka The Wolf in Gladiators (left) and pictured now (right)
Recently, he was one of the contestants in Netflix show Squid Game: The Challenge but was knocked out in the first round.
Married to Paula, he has four children and is still very physically fit, keeping up his training.
He was involved in the 2008 reboot of the show on Sky and in 2019 said he would love to revive Gladiators, saying: ‘I would love to do it. You would get all the baby-boomers from the past watching it and you would get a new generation coming up as well.’
From fitness queen to property guru
Lightning (Kim Betts, 52)
The longest-serving woman on the show, Kim Betts was Lightning, known as the ‘Queen of Hang Tough.’ Originally an accomplished gymnast, she took up weight training before going into Gladiators. Famously she appeared on the show only three weeks after having her son Lex.
Kim Betts aka Lightning, the longest serving woman on Gladiators (left), and pictured now (right)
She now lives on a farm in Staffordshire with her husband and two sons and has had a career running a fishery and in property development.
She is also a very successful bodybuilder and in 2020 was crowned Miss Universe Figure over-40s champion. Kim is also the co-owner of a supplements company.
