Edward Michael "Bear" Grylls OBE (/ˈɡrɪlz/; born 7 June 1974) is a British adventurer, writer, television presenter and former SAS trooper who is also a survival expert.

He first drew attention after embarking on a number of notable adventures, including several world records in hostile environments, and then became widely known for his television series Man vs. Wild (2006–2011).

[14][15] In August 2015, Grylls left his 11-year-old son on Saint Tudwal's Island off the North Wales coast, as the tide approached, leaving him to be rescued by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) as part of their weekly practice missions.

[18] Grylls was educated at Eaton House, Ludgrove School and Eton College, where he helped start its first mountaineering club.

[31] On 16 May 1998, Grylls achieved his childhood dream of climbing to the summit of Mount Everest in Nepal, 18 months after breaking three vertebrae in a parachuting accident.

There is some dispute over whether he was the youngest Briton to have done so, as he was preceded by James Allen, a climber holding dual Australian and British citizenship, who reached the summit in 1995 at age 22.

[34] In 2000, Grylls led the team to circumnavigate the British Isles on jet skis,[27] taking about 30 days, to raise money for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI).

He also rowed naked in a homemade bathtub along the Thames to raise funds for a friend who lost his legs in a climbing accident.

[32] In 2003, he led a team of five, including his childhood friend, SAS colleague, and Mount Everest climbing partner Mick Crosthwaite, on an unassisted crossing of the north Atlantic Ocean, in an open rigid inflatable boat.

[35] In 2005, alongside the balloonist and mountaineer David Hempleman-Adams and Lieutenant Commander Alan Veal, leader of the Royal Navy Freefall Parachute Display Team, Grylls created a world record for the highest open-air formal dinner party, which they did under a hot-air balloon at 7,600 metres (25,000 ft), dressed in full mess dress and oxygen masks.

[40] In 2008, Grylls led a team of four to climb one of the most remote unclimbed peaks in the world in Antarctica, to raise funds for children's charity Global Angels and promote the use of alternative energies.

[41] Grylls, along with the double amputee Al Hodgson and the Scotsman Freddy MacDonald, set a Guinness world record in 2008 for the longest continuous indoor freefall.

[42][43][44] In September 2010, Grylls led a team of five to take an ice-breaking rigid-inflatable boat (RIB) through 5,700 nautical miles (10,600 km) of the ice-strewn Northwest Passage.

He also appeared as a "distinguished instructor" in Dos Equis' Most Interesting Academy in a webisode named "Survival in the Modern Era".

He appeared in a five-part web series that demonstrates urban survival techniques and features Grylls going from bush to bash.

The show has featured stunts including Grylls climbing cliffs, parachuting from helicopters, balloons, and planes, paragliding, ice climbing, running through a forest fire, wading rapids, eating snakes, wrapping his urine-soaked T-shirt around his head to help stave off the desert heat, drinking urine saved in a rattlesnake skin, drinking fecal liquid from elephant dung, eating deer droppings, wrestling alligators, field dressing a camel carcass and drinking water from it, eating various "creepy crawlies" (insects), using the corpse of a sheep as a sleeping bag and flotation device, free climbing waterfalls and using a bird guano/water enema for hydration.

In August 2019, Bear Grylls appeared with Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi in a special episode shot in the India's Jim Corbett National Park, Uttarakhand.

[68] In 2011, he made two specials under the title Bear's Wild Weekend for Channel 4 in the UK which was broadcast over the Christmas holiday that year.

[73][74] In Bear Grylls: Escape from Hell, he reveals the true life stories of ordinary people trapped in extraordinary situations of survival.

[76] In this adventure TV series from NBC, which premiered on 28 July 2014, Grylls takes celebrities on a two-day trip in the wilderness.

The celebrities who took part in Season 1 are Zac Efron, Ben Stiller, Tamron Hall, Deion Sanders, Channing Tatum, and Tom Arnold.

[77][78] Celebrities who took part in Season 2 were Kate Winslet, Kate Hudson, Drew Brees, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Ed Helms, Michelle Rodriguez, Ajay Devgan,[79] Akshay Kumar, Rajanikanth,[80] India's prime minister Narendra Modi,[81] James Marsden, Michael B. Jordan, and President Barack Obama.

In summer 2015, China's Dragon TV ordered a Grylls-fronted adventure series titled Survivor Games [zh] (Chinese: 跟着贝尔去冒险).

[95] Outside of TV, Grylls works as a motivational speaker, giving speeches worldwide to corporations, churches, schools, and other organisations.

[96][97][98][99] Grylls is an ambassador for The Prince's Trust, an organisation which provides training, financial, and practical support to young people in the United Kingdom.

[15] Global Angels, a UK charity which seeks to aid children around the world, were the beneficiaries of his 2007 accomplishment of taking a powered para-glider higher than Mount Everest.

[100] In August 2010, Grylls continued his fund-raising work for Global Angels by undertaking an expedition through the Northwest Passage in a rigid inflatable boat.

"At such a time for the UK to retreat, run and cut ourselves loose from Europe, when there are so many challenges on our doorstep, to me just doesn't feel either courageous or kind," he said.

[106] Grylls was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2019 Birthday Honours for services to young people, the media and charity.

Grylls wrote, "I am so proud that the largest youth movement on the planet has asked me to continue in my role as UK Chief Scout.