Olympic swimmer Emily Seebohm faced a brutal introduction to SAS Australia vs England on Wednesday, April 29.
The athlete, 33, has joined the Australian cast of the gruelling reality TV show, which sees celebrities pushed to their limits in an SAS-style bootcamp.
For the 2026 series, seven Aussie celebrities are facing off against seven British stars, and they were forced to fight one another in the premiere episode.
Emily was pitted against social media star Jack Joseph in a Milling exercise – a 60-second fighting test where opponents punch each other in the head to test controlled aggression.
“If the DS puts me up against a woman, I don’t think I can do that; that’s mentally tricky,” Jack, 25, admitted ahead of the clash.
“I think being an athlete is winning, and you want to win every time you get in the pool,” Emily said in a voiceover ahead of the fight.
“I grew up with three brothers; I think I can give as good as I can take.”
They were given just two instructions, “fight” and “stop”, and Emily was taken down in one brutal blow to the head in her clash with Jack.
In the tense scenes, Emily fell to the floor immediately, ending their fight and leaving their co-stars gasping in shock.
However, the fight ultimately ended in a draw after Jack misheard the command “stop” in an attempted second round and tried to engage again, resulting in his penalisation.
“That was horrible,” an upset Jack admitted after the bout.
The scenes divided fans, with many taking to social media to voice their fury over the “sickening” scenes.
“For a structured TV entertainment production, are these kinds of stunts necessary? My answer is no,” one fan argued.
“I don’t believe in punching anyone, not even men punching men,” another said.
“It is never OK for a man to hit a woman,” a third fumed.
“Emily Seebohm… what the f***,” a fourth added.
However, Emily appears to have taken it in her stride, jokingly commenting on an SAS Australia post about the fight that her ears were “still ringing”.
Meanwhile, cast member Axle Whitehead conceded that it was “confronting” to watch a man fight against a woman, explaining they were matched by weight rather than gender.
“It is confronting, but it’s competition, it’s kind of Kill or Be Killed,” he told TV Tonight.
“It’s certainly not Domestic Violence or any of those horrible things. But I understand it is very confronting, and whether that’s the right or wrong thing to do, that’s up to the viewer’s discretion, I suppose.”
After the scenes, Jack told The Daily Mail that he felt “betrayed” by producers after he was “forced” to punch Emily in the debut episode.
The content creator said he was sent into a “psychological spiral” after the fight, claiming to have told bosses he wasn’t comfortable with the task.
“It was like a real-life nightmare. Especially after, I felt awful,” he told the publication.
Emily added that neither of them wanted to fight, describing the situation as “uncomfortable for both of us”, insisting she holds nothing against him.
A Channel 4 spokesperson reportedly said, “SAS: Who Dares Wins is TV’s toughest test. Milling is a long-standing and integral part of the process.
“Recruits sign up to the show knowing they will be taking part in tasks designed to push them out of their comfort zones, and each recruit is treated equally, regardless of their gender.”
“At any point, the recruits can choose not to take part in a task and voluntarily withdraw from the course.”
