Ant Middleton in London last month (Image: Adam Gerrard / Sunday Express)
HE HAS SERVED in some of the world’s toughest regiments – 9 Para, the Royal Marines, the Special Boat Service. And surprisingly, Ant Middleton says lessons he learned on the battlefield helped prepare him to tackle the sequin-spangled salsas, sambas and shimmies of Australian TV’s Dancing With The Stars.
His approach was to learn from his mistakes, set achievable goals and accept criticism – all lessons spelt out in his new book Military Mindset, I suggest.
“Yes, exactly that,” Ant says. “Breaking things down to where you can really understand them.”
This was a very different kind of action, though – hip action. Portsmouth-born Middleton had never danced or had a dancing lesson before.
“In the first episode the judges called me the dancing rhino,” he chuckles. “I decided to get through to the last episode, and I did. I put myself in that headspace, to train every day six times a week to master the routines. It was intense.
“I quickly realised the key was repetition, repetition, repetition. I trained for four to six hours a day, and worked very hard at the routines. You learn so many of them, you have to be present and focused.
“If you don’t commit, you don’t learn, and if you don’t learn, you don’t grow. It’s all about thinking positively, learning from failure.
“I enjoyed the competitive element, and the more competitive it got, the more competitive I got.”
Middleton, 44, reached the final in August and came third, dressed as a Roman gladiator, behind pop star Samantha Jade and winning actress Lisa McCune.
“It shocked me, it shocked the viewers, the judges, and the dancers,” he laughs. “It was an amazing experience.”
The former Chief Instructor on SAS: Who Dares Wins
has taken on more physically demanding challenges than cheesy cha-chas and hand jives of course.
In the military, he faced gruelling tours in Northern Ireland, North Macedonia, and Helmand Province.
In 2018, he conquered Everest, and last year he tackled K2. “The second highest mountain on earth, but the most dangerous, it took 19 days. It was an aggressive climb, we pushed and pushed. It was the most psychologically exhausting thing I’ve ever done.”
That challenge was filmed as TV documentary Killer K2.
The can-do adventurer, author and achiever has carved out a lucrative relationship with Aussie TV. He has been the chief instructor on SAS Australia: Who Dares Wins since 2020 – the year before he parted company with Channel 4 over a Twitter row.
Ant Middleton back home for the launch of new book Military Mindset (Image: Adam Gerrard / Sunday Express)
Ant lives in Dubai now – almost central for his work in the UK and the seven months a year he films Down Under. He is probably the first former special forces operator to break through into the world of celebrity entrepreneurship.
As well as books and television appearances, Middleton has a TV production company, podcasts, and new hydration-water coming out soon. He is considering a move into the food industry.
“It’s a leap of faith, man,” he admits. “I saw the opportunity, and you’ve got to be in it to win it.”
Multi-tattooed Middleton, Midsy to his mates, doesn’t accept limits.
His books have sold more than two million copies globally. First Man In: Leading From The Front, was the second best-selling autobiography of 2018 spending 34 weeks in the hardback Top Ten. Only Michelle Obama out-sold him.
His first novel, 2021’s blockbuster thriller Cold Justice, launched the character of Mallory, a Special Forces veteran turned vigilante, whose adventures continued in 2023’s Red Mist. “I’m in advanced talks about Mallory becoming a TV series,” Ant reveals.
Of Military Mindset, his latest self-help book, he says “I dive back to my military days and show how military history and modern warfare are relatable.”
And also how the lessons he learnt are universal. “The mindset is something we always use to our advantage. Technology has changed but the motivation comes from the mindset. Anyone can learn it.”
Middleton also tours – a month-long trek around the UK starts on Thursday [24th] – and delivers motivational speeches. One of his most recent, no doubt to C4’s horror, was at the Reform UK conference last month where he spoke about securing Britain’s borders, Christian values and British cultural identity.
“They asked me to do a motivational talk about leadership,” he shrugs. “I do inspirational talks all over the world. I’m good friends with Nigel…”
He has little time for you-can’t-say-that brigade. “We don’t have to tread on eggshells whenever we talk,” he says. “I never go out of my way to offend, but no matter what you say, in this day and age someone will always be offended. People’s offence is their own problem.
“When I get any negativity over something I’ve said or done, I usually ignore it.”
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In his 2019 self-help book, The Fear Bubble, Middleton trained his sights on our brave new world of mollycoddled kidults, and railed against today’s ‘victim culture’, a problem exacerbated by social media.
“We’re filling young minds with fear and negativity,” he told me when it came out. “But you can’t eliminate conflict and competition from childhood. It’s through conflict and pain that kids learn how to deal with conflict and pain.”
A TV natural, Ant felt at his freest recreating the demanding, historically accurate journey of the HMS Bounty, of 1789 mutiny fame, from Tonga to Timor, for Channel 4’s 2017 Mutiny series – he played Bligh.
During lockdown he filmed Straight Talking in Mexico with Rebel Wilson – a four-day adventure involving horseback riding and diving with sharks.
Africa is his favourite continent. As a beardless lance corporal in 2006, he went to Sierre Leone with B Company 40 Commando, Royal Marines, to train their soldiers in advanced jungle warfare, returning years later. “It’s one of the poorest countries in Africa but it’s also beautiful. The beaches are golden.”
His family life now is a lot happier than his own troubled childhood with a “very difficult” stepfather, as recounted in his autobiography.
His father Peter, a computer programmer who played chess for Great Britain, had a fatal heart attack on New Year’s Eve 1985, when Ant was five. His mother remarried and his “bully” of a stepfather moved the family to the village of Saint-Lo in France a few years later.
“I had to contend with the death of my father, moving to France and having to speak French, going to an all-Catholic school in a rural area with no English people there. I began to self-reflect and that has served me well in later life.”
Ant joined the army at 16 in 1998, and served in the 9 Parachute Squadron Royal Engineers. He then enlisted in the Royal Marines before joining the Special Boat Service as a point man and sniper in 2008, leaving in 2012.
He had a wobble in 2013, ending up in HMP Chelmsford for GBH after knocking out a policeman and going on the run, Hunted-style. Now he sees that time being bars as “a wake-up call”.
In person, Ant is shorter than you might expect, he’s 5ft 8, but powerfully built, polite and articulate with alert ice-blue eyes.
The father-of-five met his wife Emilie in 2004. “She calls me ‘annoyingly positive’,” he says with a grin. “Sometimes she tells me to F off but then she says ‘Yeah I get it’.
“That’s the way I am. I live in the now and I tackle things with a positive attitude. People are too easily distracted and they limit themselves.
“Anyone can change their life, as long as you have the courage to be brutally honest with yourself. Facing your fears and beating them is a way of learning about yourself and becoming the best possible version of yourself. Why wouldn’t you want to do that?”
He’s happy, he assures me. “I can’t complain. Life is busy, challenging…it’s very positive.”
*Military Mindset by Ant Middleton (Hodder, £22) is published on Thursday 24th October.
