Celebrity SAS star John Barrowman had ‘thoughts of suicide’ after flashing scandal

Celebrity SAS star John Barrowman says he had “thoughts of suicide” following a scandal in which he allegedly repeatedly exposed himself on a set.

Barrowman, who appears briefly in this year’s celebrity spin-off of SAS: Who Dares Wins, apologised in 2021 after claims that he “got his d**k out every five seconds” during filming of Doctor Who, in which he played the roguish time-traveller Captain Jack Harkness.

A runner on the set of BBC’s long-running sci-fi show in the mid-2000s told The Guardian at the time that she frequently witnessed the star exposing himself. She said he would “get his genitals out on a regular basis”, and he’d “sort of have his balls hanging out of his trousers or something” which he “just thought was really funny”.

After the allegations, Barrowman apologised for engaging in “tom-foolery”, later adding that the claims were “exaggerated” and did not amount to “sexual harassment”.

He went on to say: “I think if it was now, it would be crossing the line. I think that something that happened 15 years ago, it was bawdy behaviour, silly behaviour, it was being done in the confines of the set and we were like a family, working together.”

Now, the star has told The Mirror, that the scandal nearly drove him to take his own life.

“I had thoughts of suicide, going out and trying to do certain things and harm myself, and a couple of times debating how I was going to kill myself,” he said. Only the thought of family and friends, and his husband Scott Gill, made him reconsider.

Barrowman has “lost a lot of trust in other people”, because those he thought would be there for him, weren’t. They were “scared”, he added.

“[It] was a stupid prank, done among cast members, who never complained, never said anything about, but a narrative was created that apparently I was going around and throwing my c**k on people’s shoulders, which was not true.

“We had pranks but they were among the company members and we all laughed and had fun. I was being, in a sense, publicly punished and humiliated for those things, and being cancelled.

“The one thing I would never do, and it makes me upset thinking about this, is that people would think I would harm a woman, that I would do something. To be called a sexual harasser, I would never do anything to harm a woman or a man or anybody, transgender, you name it. That’s just not who this man is.”

Barrowman will come under the spotlight again now, with the news breaking that he quit the new series of Celebrity SAS, filmed in New Zealand last year, just hours after it began.

He said his departure was not down to the rigorous challenges but treatment by the staff. “The [former soldiers] started shouting things like: ‘You’re nothing. You don’t know who you are, and you can’t do this and you’re going to learn a lot about yourself’,” the Torchwood star claimed.

“Through the process, I kept thinking to myself: ‘I know exactly who I am’. I came out of the closet when I was in my twenties before loads of people did. I know who John Barrowman is. Why am I letting these men shout at me?’

“I kept thinking, ‘Have I made a mistake?’ There was an inner dialogue going through my head the whole time [and I was] thinking, stick it out, it’ll be fine and we’ll see what happens next.”

A few hours later, he decided he’d had enough and headed home.

Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins launches at 9pm on Sunday (22 September) on Channel 4.

Suicide is preventable. Readers who are affected by the issues raised in this story are encouraged to contact Samaritans on 116 123 (www.samaritans.org), or Mind on 0300 123 3393 (www.mind.org.uk). ​Readers in the US are encouraged to contact the National Suicide Prevention Line on 1-800-273-8255.