Celeb SAS star overcame child abuse and drugs to become real-life Action Man
Rudy Reyes looks every inch a real-life Action Man – and he is certainly enough to scare the living daylights out of Matt Hancock and Gareth Gates.
The highly decorated former US Recon Marine – the American equivalent of our Special Forces – proved a big hit with Channel 4 viewers when he made his UK TV debut in the channel’s SAS team last year, replacing hardman Ant Middleton. And Rudy will be returning to our screens this week for the new series of Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins, set in the Vietnamese jungle.
But behind the 51-year-old’s tough guy image is a deeper and darker back story, ranging from childhood abuse and homelessness to drug addiction and a year in a mental institution. It’s a story that Rudy says moulded him into the survivor he is today – and was forged by his experiences as a soldier.
“In my first year in the Marines, 23 of my Recon brothers died in training,” he says. “We’re out at sea, battling 20ft waves. We arrive in helicopters on the decks of ships and take down the bad guys… SAS: Who Dares Wins is not that but there’s nothing pretend about it.” Of the show’s new series, Rudy says: “The contestants’ training is dangerous and conducted in extreme weather conditions.
Rudy ready for action“The celebrities are always taken by surprise at just how freaking difficult it is. I’ve been in jungles, deserts and on film sets but right here, I’m in the best place I’ve ever been in my life.” It hasn’t always been like that, though. Growing up in Texas and Missouri, he pinballed between his mother, his Vietnam veteran father and his grandparents. Life for Rudy and his two younger brothers, Caesar and Michael, was tough.
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“At times we had little food, no medical care and had cockroaches and rats climbing over us in search of something to eat,” he says. “We would hide in the closet and put Dad’s cowboy boots on our arms to smash the rats. I had such bad tooth decay, the kids at school started calling me ‘boca podrida’ – ‘rotten mouth’ in Spanish. I was so self-conscious that I stopped talking, so as to not show my teeth or let out a stink.”
Worse was to come when he was molested by a family friend, who climbed into his bed when he was 11. “I felt completely destroyed inside and started falling apart,” says Rudy, who, along with his two brothers, ended up in a home for neglected boys in Nebraska. It was there, inspired by Bruce Lee and Spider-Man in the Marvel comics, that Rudy began training in martial arts to protect himself and his siblings.
“I had these Spider-Man pyjamas,” he laughs. “When I wore them, I really believed I could be a superhero.” Rudy became his brothers’ legal guardian at 17 and paid their household bills by working at a diner and singing in a rock ’n’ roll band. When Caesar and Michael became self-sufficient, Rudy joined the US Marine Corps and passed the training to become a Recon Marine.
Former Health Secretary Matt Hancock tackles tough SAS trial (Channel 4)He says of his stints leading operations in Afghanistan and Iraq: “The business of war is a hard, harsh and terribly brutal job. I was turned into a living weapon.” He recalls becoming close to an Iraqi family on his third and final tour of the country in 2005, sharing his rations with the couple and their three children.
On his last day in Iraq, he saw them fleeing their blown-up home. “I looked back at the blood, the tears and loss, and that was the last time I saw my beautiful Iraqi family,” he says. The trauma left Rudy determined to find a new path in life. His battlefield experience – along with a stint as a model after leaving the military – helped propel him into showbusiness in 2008 and he was offered a role in the HBO mini-series, Generation Kill.
But Rudy soon found himself fighting another battle – drug addiction. “I’d go to parties in New York and Los Angeles, full of actors and directors and cocaine,” he says. “I was the toast of the town, because everybody wants at least one sniper killer friend. But in my head, the war was still raging.
“I’d not processed what I’d been through in battle. I was fighting people on the streets. I was dangerous. I got into one bad relationship after another, sleeping with models and actresses. I’d never touched drugs before but now I used cocaine and alcohol to numb me enough to be able to stand myself.
Rudy in his days as Recon Marine“I was 38 years old and completely depressed. I had all these accolades but couldn’t even leave my bedroom.” In 2016, Rudy hit rock bottom – homeless, broke and considering suicide. He admits: “I came real close to ending it all. I spent a year in a mental institution after that.”
Rudy says his salvation was finding love with 24-year-old Jade Struck, and discovering a part of the ocean that never crossed his mind as a Marine – its beauty beneath the waves. Rudy says: “I cleaned up. I stopped drinking and doing drugs and ended up creating Force Blue Team. We take special forces operators and use them to help scientists rebuild coral reefs. It gave me the purpose that had been missing.”
Rudy also says it was love at first sight when he met firearms instructor Jade online. “She did weapons training for the John Wick films,” he says. “She’s an incredible markswoman and she’s stunning and passionate about Jesus. She helped me get back into my faith.” Now the author of a self-help book, Hero Living: Seven Strides to Awaken Your Infinite Power, Rudy – who works out for two hours every day – says he’s as pumped for life as ever.
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“I reckon I have about 10 to 15 years of being a real-life superhero left. Then it’s off to the ranch to settle down and have kids with Jade.” But he fancies one more adventure first – following fellow tough guy Arnold Schwarzenegger into the world of politics. “I feel a need to represent our veterans and their families,” he says. And if he doesn’t get what he wants politically? “Then me and Jade might try to get dual citizenship in the UK. I love you guys.”
* Hero Living: Seven Strides to Awaken Your Infinite Power by Rudy Reyes is published by Quercus on October 12. To order a copy, visit amazon.co.uk, waterstones.com or bookshop.org
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