When fear took over, Eden became the fifth celebrity recruit to voluntarily withdraw and admits to Who that he was disheartened about how his SAS journey came to an end.
"It was disappointing because I was doing pretty well but it did bring back bad memories for me, unfortunately. I thought I could’ve gone all the way but unfortunately those past experiences got to me," he says.
But despite not getting all the way to the end, Eden admits he really enjoyed the whole "life-changing" experience and spilled some of the interesting details that didn't make it to air.
The challenges may have been tough but one thing that stuck out for Eden that made the whole experience more challenging was the freezing cold.
"With the bathrooms and washing your clothes you had to have one person come with you at all times, they really wanted to create an army, war environment. It was definitely different living to what we were used to I’ll tell you that!" he says.
Filmed on location in the Snowy Mountains, temperatures ranged from a minimum of -5°C to a maximum of 8°C and Eden says it made a big difference to the day-to-day tasks back at camp too.
"There was a gap in the door so the wind would be blowing in all night – I didn’t think Australia could get so cold but it proved me wrong when we went there!" he says.
"If the fire went out in the night time, you’d be shaking. If you had to go to the toilet in the night, you had no shoes on and you’d quickly run and stand there shivering because the toilets are outside."
What's more, when the Directing Staff ordered the recruits to submerge themselves in the icy water that averaged around 4°C, it left a mark.
"When we took our clothes off we were red raw - we looked like lobsters!" Eden recalls.
Attempting to wear wet or damp clothes in sub-zero temperatures is also very dangerous so things became even tougher when the recruits had to enter the water in their dry kit.
"We only had two sets of clothes, your dry kit and your wet kit, and we had to go into the water in our dry kit, we had no dry clothes. It would've been a nightmare," Eden says.
The silver lining of Eden's SAS departure was his reunion with partner Cyrell Paule and their eight-month-old son, Boston back in their hometown of Sydney. The proud dad even admitted that aside from the cold, being away from them was "the killer" during his intense reality TV experience.
"[Boston]'s starting to say things like ‘Go away’ and ‘Hello’. He’s a cheeky little boy, he is so active, he’s standing up and climbing walls. You’ve really got to watch him, he’s a bit of a handful and he’s got a big personality!" Eden says.
Despite the challenge of raising a newborn with a global pandemic going on, Eden admits that parenting post-Covid lockdown is going pretty well.
"We kind of freaked out when Covid happened about taking him out. It was just annoying that we couldn’t do the things we wanted to do with a newborn – I wanted to be a proud dad wheeling my son out on the Bay Run or going to the beach," the dad-of-one says.
"He’s a little handful but he’s a joy and a very happy baby. I see big things – not reality TV though – for my son. And as I’ve said, if Covid doesn’t kill me Cyrell will!"
