You’re just getting cut up like crazy with all the thorns, but that’s pretty much the only thing that’s going to keep a lion out.”Įven during the daylight hours, when a full production crew was capturing their every move, Nodar never quite felt at ease. “Chopping down acacia trees naked is not fun. That, in theory, is suppose to keep the animals out.” He laughs. It’s about eight feet tall, eight feet wide. “It’s made out of acacia trees and thorn bushes. To protect themselves, the contestants had to build a perimeter around their camp. But as time went on, we grew accustomed to it.” It was definitely hard to sleep through that.
“It was nonstop the second the sun went down - hyenas, lions, leopards. “The sounds at night were absolutely horrifying,” he says with a visible shudder. “That whole year of my life pushing through things that I didn’t think I was going to be able to push through completely changed me for the better and made these type of challenges - I don’t want to say easy, but it put everything in perspective.”īeing naked wasn’t an issue for Nodar, though the show reminded him “that naked women still make me as uncomfortable as they did back when I was in my late teens.” Being afraid, however, was a completely different story.
“That whole struggle without question is one of the reasons I can go into these challenges and have the mental strength that I do,” he says. 5 Hot Albums By LGBTQ Artists And Allies For Summer 2022