I'm very bad with cocktail parties: Bear Grylls

Bear Grylls in front of an Alaska Air National Guard, 210th Rescue Squadron HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopter before heading out to Spencer Glacier to film Man vs. Wild in June 2009. Photo: commons.wikimedia.org
Bear Grylls in front of an Alaska Air National Guard, 210th Rescue Squadron HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopter before heading out to Spencer Glacier to film Man vs. Wild in June 2009. Photo: commons.wikimedia.org

"Man vs. Wild" host Bear Grylls says he finds cocktail parties more frightening than mountains or jungles.

"I'm very bad with cocktail parties. Genuinely, I find those much more frightening than big mountains or jungles. I'm also very cautious with saltwater crocodiles," Grylls said in a statement to IANS.

The British adventurer got popular for teaching the art of survival on the small screen through "Man vs. Wild".

Discovery India will be showcasing a two-day marathon on Grylls titled "Bearathon" featuring best episodes across various franchises like "Man vs Wild", "Running Wild with Bear Grylls" on 7-8 July.

Out of all his expeditions, he says he is proud of climbing Mt Everest.

"I think Everest was special. You know, it opened -- it was kind of a huge dream for so long, and a lot happened out there," Grylls said, adding "we lost four people, and it was kind of -- it was a life journey for me in some ways because it had been such a dream for so long".

Grylls says the difficult part of his job is that there is danger involved.

"I have a family, and that kind of line is a difficult one -- that balance is difficult to get right. But I'm -- I have a good judgment about whether they become strong, and I think before I was a dad, I was 100 per cent reckless. And I think when my first one came, I was then about 97 per cent reckless. And steadily, now I'm probably now about 90 per cent reckless.

"But you know, as a crew, there's no ego, no gung ho, no competition. You really look out for each other. We're all pros, and we do our job kind of well and never get complacent and always keep training to keep up our skills with things. That's why we're still around."