Joe Marler has made headlines for his performance on Celebrity Traitors, making it to the finale as arguably the most impressive Faithful on the show.
His place in the finale as one of the three Faithful trying to vote out Traitors Alan Carr and Cat Burns has been hotly anticipated by fans, even if the episode was mistakenly posted early.
Marler was the first to suggest the ‘big dog’ theory, which ultimately saw Jonathan Ross exposed as the first Traitor voted off the show.
To those not fluent with Rugby Union, however, Marler will have probably been best known for clips of him on X (Twitter) winding up other players, during which many fans would have noticed his penchant for a wild mohawk.
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Surprisingly, this is not just a random choice, and the Celebrity Traitors star has some actual reasoning for it.
Wearing a mohawk for the majority of his career, Marler spoke in an interview with the Daily Mail in the past about how it was, in part, to motivate his performance on the rugby field.
He said: “If you're going to put yourself out there with a red mohawk and white boots, you've got to make sure you perform.
“Otherwise, you're just that kn*b with the sh*t hair. The mohawk was a way of finding my feet in a sport where most of the guys were from private schools.
“I had a chip on my shoulder. I thought, ‘I'm going to prove a point here and I'm going to do it looking like a tw*t’.
“I never wanted to just go along with the norm and do as I was told.”
Discussing his decision to get a hair transplant earlier this year, Marler called mohawks 'part of his identity', saying: "The reason I started out with the mohawk was I enjoyed the attention, it was different to everything else, it put two fingers up to the public school boy image of rugby, and it was just really fun. I found it an easy way of expressing my personality."
In addition to this, however, Marler also revealed that initially it was part of a persona he put on.
He said: “I made a thing out of telling people to p*ss off. The scary haircuts and everything else were just part of this persona of, ‘F*ck you lot, I'm all right, I don't cry, I don't kiss or cuddle’.”
He finally added: “The rugby world was a fake character. It wasn't real life.”
Marler has bravely spoken out in the past about his mental health struggles, stating he had struggled with severe depression and suicidal thoughts.
The rugby player-turned-TV star has also been open about using antidepressants as part of his treatment plan.
Marler’s success on the show appears to have opened a number of doors for the former England rugby star, as the BBC is reportedly eyeing him up for a presenting job.
Per the Daily Mail, he has long wanted to present from a BBC sofa’ and his dream would be The One Show.
An anonymous source said: “The BBC is constantly looking for new talent. The second he stopped playing rugby, there were eyes on him.
“Traitors [was] a very good shop window. They could test whether or not the viewers would like him.
“As soon as they saw it, they knew he would be someone the British public would adore.”
Topics: Rugby, Mental Health, BBC, TV and Film, TV, Celebrity
Michael Slavin