Scott Mills and Sam: ‘We realised our biggest fear on Celebrity Race Across the World’
Celebrity Race Across the World contestants Scott Mills and his husband Sam Vaughan say the thing that worried them the most, while taking part in the show, was running out of money.
Talking to Yahoo in an exclusive new interview, Radio 2 presenter Mills says: "When you're doing Celebrity Race Across the World, the biggest fear is: are we gonna lose the money? Are we gonna lose the map and are we gonna run out of money? It’s all you really think about."
Celebrity Race Across the World appears to be the hardest series of the BBC One show yet, with the four teams racing from Belém, Northern Brazil to reach the finish line in the Andes, Frutillar in Southern Chile.
The final episode is on Wednesday 18 September, and it's closer between all the teams than ever before. And as they race across the mighty Andes to Chile, the married couple face a huge decision that could either make or break them in the final.
Mills and Vaughan take us behind the scenes of their Celebrity Race Across the World experience, including the final decision they struggled to make, being vulnerable on camera, and of course that jaw-dropping moment where they were mistaken for father and son...
Yahoo: Has Celebrity Race Across the World changed your lives?
Scott: Well, let me tell you, it definitely changed Sam's life because we were at a Radio Two event in Preston at the weekend and there was a queue of people asking for Sam's photos, so that's definitely changed.
Sam: Usually I'm the one holding the camera taking pictures of Scott but it was the other way around. He didn't really like it.
Scott: No Sam, it wasn't the other way around but they were like, "Oh my God, it's Scott, Can I have a picture?" It’s like, "Yeah, Yeah." Then they’re like, "Sam you get in it as well." He always goes to take the picture you see. Sam is having his moment. Big, big fame!
Has Celebrity Race Across the World changed the way you travel?
Scott: Since we've done Race, I had to take a lot of time off for it, I was off the radio for five weeks and so I haven't got any holiday left. We haven't really travelled since. But what I did say to Sam and I believe this to be true is next time we do go away and we don't know where we're going to go. But we will be able to go somewhere in October for a week, that would be like our honeymoon because we haven't had one.
I am gonna lock my phone away for the whole week. I'm gonna get Sam to put it in the safe and don't tell me the number. Because if I can do it for five weeks, I can do it for one week.
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Sam: 100%. When we got back, people asked us, "How did you cope being on a bus for 27 hours?" But the time goes really fast so we could easily do that again. What I liked is that you put your phone away and you get to see the whole world because usually when you're travelling or if you're on a bus going somewhere that you would just be on your phone watching something or just reading the news.
But without your phone, you get to see everything that you're passing through. So over those 27 hours, we got to see loads of different kinds of parts of the world that you would miss if you had your phone. So I think when we go away, it is our phones away as well, so we can be more present.
Scott: In our lifetime, this won’t happen again. When are you ever gonna get five weeks where actually you are off grid? You have no contact with the outside world. After a couple of days without your phone, it becomes like a load has been lifted. You actually feel lighter because of it.
Sam: When you've been on the bus for 27 hours, you just care about a bed to sleep in. Wednesday night's episode when we left that hotel because it cost so much money. I said, "Can we just find a bus to sleep on?" All we needed was somewhere to put our heads down. When you go on holiday as well, we're not in the hotel room for long so you don't need five-star luxury. You just need somewhere you can put your head down and have a shower.
Scott: The last thing you're worried about is room service. You literally need a surface that you can lie on.
What would you say has been the most challenging part of taking part and why?
Scott: It is great fun. It is really much harder than I expected. It's fair to say this series they have ramped it up in terms of it's really difficult. But what an experience! It’s pretty much, as you've seen, all by bus. They don't have trains in South America which we found out quite quickly. You end up looking forward to going on a night bus. Who would ever think that would be possible? It’s like when you try and sleep on a plane.
Sam: I like to save money. I like to budget and plan everything. I have it in my head, this is how much we're gonna spend per leg. But we've never been to these countries before. We don't know how much things are gonna cost. So when we finally get our heads around how much everything costs in Brazil. You then go into a different country and it could be a lot more and a lot less.
Scott: Different currency.
Sam: As you can see in some of the episodes, we're just going, "Oh, let's just splash the cash." When are we going to have this chance again? Even watching it this week, I’m thinking: is that how little money we've got left? How are we getting through this? You start to panic.
Scott: You don’t know.
Sam: How much do you budget? That was the hardest part. It was just trying to gauge how much money to spend, when you spend it and how much to keep.
Scott: Also remember, we haven't seen this show either. So when you're watching it, we are also watching it. What was stressing me out Wednesday night was how the percentage where it goes down and down and down. I was there. I’m one of the contestants and the percentage was stressing me out. You've got Jeff and Freddie with £600 left.
Sam: At every checkpoint you meet up with every couple and they don't really tell you how much they’re spending. Even at the start of Wednesday's episode, we told everyone that we spent this much money on a ferry and everyone’s like "Oooh!" But then Kola and Mary-Ellen always would say, "Oh, yeah, we just spent £200 on a taxi." We knew that they were splashing through the money. Every checkpoint we thought: will they turn up? Won’t they turn up? They could afford that taxi on Wednesday's show, so as we get to the final, will they turn up?
Scott: When you're doing it, the biggest fear is: are we gonna lose the money? Are we gonna lose the map and are we gonna run out of money? It’s all you really think about. It was my birthday during the show, I had a bread roll to celebrate. Also, it got to the point where we had maybe two notes, US dollars, maybe it was like fifties or something, but two notes in your money bag. That's really stressful.
How did you negotiate the decisions in the race as well?
Scott: Well, there was one bit where Sam said, "Trust me, I've got this." And then it went really wrong.
Sam: It didn’t, we clawed back 13 hours. Because we work so well as a team, we just trust each other's thoughts. As well as on the race, you want to get those experiences. When I really wanted to do the sand dunes and go on the buggies to get some adrenaline during the race. It was Scott’s worst nightmare.
Scott: I hated it.
Sam: Like going to Thorpe Park or Alton Towers. And he said, "You want me to strap into a buggy to go around the sand with a man who loves adrenaline?" We compromised with each other. You want to do this, so let's do this. We wanted to ensure that both of us will get the best experience.
Scott: We were hanging off the edge of a cliff! I knew: this is not for me.
Sam: But you’ll see at the start of the final that we might not be able to come to a decision so there’s something else that we do instead.
Scott: We are quite a chilled out couple. If one of us really wants to do something, then we go along with it. There’s a couple of bits of bickering, like "I don’t know what to do Sam."
Sam: It is frustration.
Scott: We don't argue really at all in life. But I did think to myself when we signed up for this: "Oh, my God. We're about to get married. Are we going to argue?" Because it's the ultimate test. It's really stressful. You’re in so many frustrating — no one speaks English — situations. In the back of my mind, I thought I don’t think we will. That's what it is about. Relationships should be about teamwork. If one of you strongly disagrees, then say it. If you don't, then just go with it.
I didn't want to go on the sand dunes at all but I knew that Sam really did. That's compromise which I think is important in a relationship. It also made me realise that he is the person that I should be marrying.
Watch the Celebrity Race Across the World trailer
How did race prepare you for married life?
Scott: Some people fall in love with somebody and then they go on holiday with them and it all goes wrong. They always say going on holiday with someone is the real test. Celebrity Race Across the World is that times two million. I thought to myself: if you can get through Celebrity Race Across the World you can get through anything. And we did.
Sam: We were tired. We were hungry. We were lost and we got through it. The start of the next episode, none of us wanted to take that pressure and deciding which route we should take. I think one of the legs I said, "I'll take this route" and then another one Scott said, "Oh, I want to do this." But in the last week, we asked each other, "What do you want to do?" You don’t want that pressure of what route we should take.
Scott: It's so close in Celebrity Race Across the World now. You don't want to be that person to make that decision because it's the final leg. You do not want to be that person that makes the wrong decision and messes it up.
You spoke about your brief split early in your relationship on the show. It's clear you're really strong now, why did you choose to open up about that and how did you find being vulnerable on camera?
Scott: I found it OK. I'm aware that this show, they are filming you all the time and they ask you a lot of questions but that's because they have a programme to make. For a lot of the viewers watching, they don't know anything about Sam and they might have never listened to me so you have to explain the story.
As a fan of the show, the backstories of the people who are on it — along with the amazing countries and places you’ve never seen before — the stories are my favourite bit. Because people could have listened to me on the radio for 20 years and they have learned so much more about me like actual me than they ever have listening to the radio. That's part of the reason I wanted to do it.
Sam: It wasn't my natural thing. I'm a closed book. I hate talking about my feelings. I hate opening up and talking about my feelings.
Scott: I was really surprised. With Sam, it’s more what he does for you than what he says. He just doesn't like talking about it. And also that is a lot of people. Not everyone wears their heart on their sleeve. A lot of people just don't. On that show, it's really weird, you just find yourself opening up and I have never seen Sam like it before and it was actually lovely to see. When I was watching it, I had a little tear.
Sam: As we were on the journey we were in some amazing places. You forget the camera is there because you are just trying to focus on where you are, especially on the train journey. We were just in amazing sites, I just felt relaxed. You can just open because you think it's me and Scott that are there at that point, you forget that millions of people are going to watch it. I don't usually open up but because I was relaxed I wasn't worrying about anything and that amazing train journey that just allowed me to open up a little bit.
What would you say has been the most rewarding thing about Celebrity Race Across the World?
Scott: The fact that I know that I have married the one for me. I always suspected that was true but it just solidified the whole thing. It made me appreciate the life that I have and made me realise how lucky I am because we met and saw lots of people that aren't as lucky as us. Also, it makes you think to yourself that if you need to you can really survive in the most basic of situations and you can still have an amazing time.
Sam: The kindness of people, even though they might have not understood us due to the language barrier, they were willing to help us. One of the things that I love doing this was because Scott, he's done a lot. He's done Strictly. He's done a 24 hour treadmill challenge. He's done panto and I've always been there supporting him but to do something that we could together.
Scott: With me.
Sam: When Scott achieves something, he gets that buzz off that and I get the buzz because he's achieved it. But to do something together and both have that knowledge and benefit at the end was something.
Scott: It really is a once in a lifetime thing. When you come back, you get the blues about it. Back in the real world, you've got your phone back. When they offered us to have our phones back, none of us said "yes" initially.
At one point there was the lady who thought you were Sam's dad — are you ever surprised by people's responses to your relationship and how do you shrug it off?
[Scott bursts out laughing]
Scott: I must have looked rough that day! Dad's a bit of a stretch. I thought, "OK, I'll let you have that one hun." A lot of people on the trip thought we were brothers but when she said "dad", I was thinking, "Are you joking?" You've got a laugh. We don't think about the age gap at all and none of our friends do. It's not a thing because this is not. We are made for each other.
Sam: Because Scott was on Radio 1 for so long that he kept himself on the pulse of everything that was happening. So sometimes he would come home and say, "Have you seen this?" And I'd say "no" so he would know more current affairs way before me. We never really noticed it.
Scott: For instance, I said to him yesterday, have you heard this song called Hot to Go? He’s says, "No." I said, "Chappell Roan?" He says, "Dunno." So there you go! That’s how it works out. We do get brothers quite a lot. But never had dad before. That was a new one. But do you know what? There was a lot more to worry about than that.
Sam: We thought the Europeans were blunt and straight to point.
Scott: I thought, "Wow OK!" I just had a bad night’s sleep.
It's been so much fun chatting, you are just like you are on-screen.
Scott: Wish us luck for next week! There's six episodes but it feels like it's gone so fast. Never mind. We’ll do Celebrity Race Across the World every year!
Sam: We could do an All Stars one.
Scott: Yeah, well up for that. Like when they bring people back on the Strictly Christmas special. All Stars, we’re there!
Celebrity Race Across The World airs on BBC One at 9pm on Wednesday.
This article originally appeared on Yahoo TV UK at https://uk.news.yahoo.com/scott-mills-sam-celebrity-race-across-the-world-122559029.html
