Original Gladiator Jet admits she wasn’t ‘mentally prepared’ for show success

Speaking exclusively to Express.co.uk, Diana Youdale admitted she wasn’t “mentally prepared or comfortable” with Gladiators’ success.

“It was something that you can’t really mentally prepare for until you actually go through it,” she explained.

“Because it was such… I think if you’d been an athlete that would run around a running track and do track and field and things like that, and you’re used to that arena experience and were really comfortable with the physicality in bit of lycra basically.

“I think nothing can prepare you for it. The only thing I can say that I brought to the arena and made me immediately think ‘Oh,I can do this,’ was having been a gymnast in a bit of lycra as a child for about seven years.”

The 53-year-old added: “I was in GB, I was an elite gymnast. So I continued my skills all the way through my late teens into my early 20s, so I had the ability and that boosted my confidence.”

Talking about the fame and recognition the show brought her, Diane remarked: “I wouldn’t have done the show for the fame.

“I’ve been very comfortable with being an athlete really, from an early age.

“And I’ve done a lot of performance work as a dancer and choreographer, so I’m quite happy in a little theatre with a live audience to do theatre work.

“Then to suddenly be on a medium where the audience is like a nine to 11 million reach, which it was at the time… it wasn’t wasn’t something I was mentally really prepared for or comfortable with.

“I just thought, ‘Well it’s another job, it’s in the can, it’ll be what it’ll be.’

“So I started wearing caps to go to the supermarket so I wasn’t comfortable with being followed and all of it like that.

“To me, not to demean it, but it was just another job. I was a jobbing theatre, media TV film actor, I guess, but just having been an athlete I could do a show like that. without having to… not really try, but it wasn’t a big stretch.”

Speaking on behalf of ICE 36, Diane also detailed how she made herself comfortable with the role.

“My fears started to ease when I realised that I could bring my own Gladiator identity to the show and have fun with the character of Jet,” she recalled.

“I knew that I would bring something different to the programme because I wasn’t a bodybuilder, my background was as a dancer and in athletics.

“I really settled into the Jet persona. I quickly found out that I really excelled at some of the events on the programme.”