Mummy Buzz

Aug
08
2011

Adventurer's Son Rescues Girl

Like Bear, Like Son

Looks like Bear Grylls' 7-year-old son, Jesse, is already following in his adventurer father's footsteps. While playing in a stream recently, a friend of his fell in, and Jesse dragged her out of the water to safety.

"I wasn't there, you know, and the story grows and grows every time he tells me," said Grylls Senior, star of the popular show 'Man vs. Wild'. "But he did rescue her, and he was proud as punch to have dragged her out."

The 37-year-old death-defying survivalist and superstar admits he worries about the impact his career has on his three children - Jesse, Marmaduke, 5, and Huckleberry, 4. Even TV superstars have trouble striking the right work-life balance, it seems.

"For a long time, I never wanted them to be too aware of what I do. I relaxed when all their friends were talking about me in the playground, and they were the only ones not to have seen the program. But getting the balance right is hard. Do I want them to grow up to be me? No, actually. I'm unemployable in the real world. I don't want that for them."

First airing on the Discovery Channel in 2006, 'Man vs. Wild' went on to become the No.1 show in America, with Grylls gaining notoriety for his extreme stunts, including crossing the icy Atlantic in a dinghy, paragliding above Mount Everest, sleeping inside a camel carcass, and munching on yak eyeballs in Siberia.

Evidently Grylls Junior has his work cut out for him. For the time being, though, a little normalcy is in the cards, with Jesse's headmaster reportedly telling his dad, "It's great that [Grylls' kids] might know how to take the door off a helicopter and deal with a snake bite, but it would be really great if they focused a little more on the mathematics".

Well, as normal as life with Bear for a dad can be, that is.