How rugby star passed the Mary test
Rugby star Gareth Thomas on the thrill of impressing everyone’s favourite TV judge with his kitchen skills
O N PAPER they are unlikely soul mates: Mary Berry, the petite 85-year-old doyenne of baking, and Gareth Thomas, the hulking former international rugby star and cooking rookie. But, brought together in a new series of Celebrity Best Home Cook, the pair got on like a house on fire and Mary singled out Gareth’s traditional Welsh dish as her favourite.
In order to adhere to social distancing rules, Mary used a pair of opera glasses to judge Gareth and the other contestants from a mezzanine floor 15ft above the set, alongside TV chef Angela Hartnett and presenter Claudia Winkleman.
“I was two metres apart from Mary. But in my head, I was cuddling her,” says the sportsman, smiling. “Mary really wanted to know what home cooking meant to me and my main aim was to try to impress her,” he continues in his soft, lilting Welsh accent.
“I am used to cooking for [my husband] Stephen and my step-daughter Anna but, on this show, it is the judges that you really have to impress.
“But I couldn’t believe it when Mary said that her favourite ultimate dinner was mine. The mad thing is that until a couple of years ago, I couldn’t really cook.”
And for an international rugby star who was used to performing in front of huge crowds, Gareth was unusually nervous.
“The biggest crowd I’ve ever played rugby in front of is a stadium full of 110,000 people but then I knew how to play rugby. When I went on the show, I realised why I don’t let anyone into my kitchen, because I hate people watching me cook.
“My glasses were falling off my face because I was sweating so much in the kitchen. I found it really really difficult to cope in the pressure of an environment that I wasn’t used to being in. We all said at the end of a day of cooking ‘I’m knackered, like I have nothing left in me’.”
Gareth didn’t start cooking until after he and Stephen married in 2016 and realised that they were both useless in the kitchen. “It was clear that one of us had to learn to cook – and fast,” he chuckles.
The other celebrity cooks include journalist and presenter Rachel Johnson, comedian Ed Byrne, CBBC presenter and Strictly contestant Karim Zeroual, reality TV star Ferne McCann, broadcaster, former Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls, Years And Years actor Ruth Madeley, Celebs Go Dating’s Tom Read Wilson, actress Shobna Galati and writer Desiree Burch.
In the first episode, they were challenged by Mary to produce their ultimate homecooked dinner, followed by Chris’s “Rustle Up” where they have one hour to create a masterpiece using a mystery ingredient.
Those who fail to impress then enter the dreaded Eliminator round, where the cooks must follow one of Angela’s recipes, with the weakest contestant sent home. “Mary is in charge of the first challenge,” reveals Gareth. “She wants to know what proper home cooking means to all of the contestants so I decided to cook my Glamorgan sausage recipe, which I’ve only ever made about three times.
“It’s actually a vegetarian dish made from cheese, leeks and rolled in breadcrumbs and is a recipe from the 1850s when meat was hard to get hold of and cheese was used as a substitute.
“Mary was looking for a great recipe and skill in cooking but it was nerve-wracking having her watch me from the mezzanine level above the kitchen. But I pulled it off and this Glamorgan sausage dish was the biggest that I’d ever made.
“Chris said in terms of flavour that it was brilliant and that I couldn’t have done a better job and Mary said she had never seen, heard of or tasted Glamorgan sausage but that it was absolutely superb. I couldn’t help but run around the kitchen with my arms in the air whooping with joy and Claudia said it was really hard not to squeeze me.
“Out of all the contestants, Mary picked out my dish as her favourite.” In the second episode, Gareth decided it was time for a spot of team bonding and had the other contestants join him in some rugby warm-up exercises.
But when it came to the cooking, the sportsman admits he felt way out of his comfort zone.
“Doing something like this is a huge departure for me although I was so excited about it because it was just a challenge. But as it got closer and closer, the reality dawned on me that I was actually going to be very exposed.
“I was saying to people that I know: I need to reiterate to you how bad I am. I didn’t want to come on a programme and present to Mary and Angela and be a joke. I really didn’t know if my talent was good enough and, as it got closer, there was a lot of me that was thinking, ‘Oh god, what have you got yourself into now’. And then having Mary look at me cooking through her opera glasses was pretty intense and I thought: I could cry now or I could laugh. And I chose to laugh.”
GARETH says he is doubly surprised at how well he did, considering the standard of the competition, most notably from the Prime Minister’s sister.
“Rachel’s a bloody good cook,” he says.
“She did some good dishes, she was really, really good.And she was such good fun. One day, I remember saying to her, ‘can I ask you something quite personal and I hope you’re not offended by it’.
“She said straight away, ‘is it to do with my brother?’ and I said, ‘no, it’s got nothing to do with your brother!’ and I asked her if she went to the gym regularly because she has got an amazing figure. It never crossed my mind, and it was probably quite refreshing for her, that somebody wasn’t addressing her as ‘the sibling of Boris Johnson’ and saying ‘we’re going to have to quiz you about Covid or Brexit’.”
Gareth is no stranger to reality TV shows, having appeared in Dancing On Ice and The
‘I couldn’t help but run around the kitchen whooping. Claudia said it was hard not to squeeze me’
Jump. But he had to pull out of both because he suffers from vertigo.
“In Dancing On Ice, I was vomiting all over the place,” he recalls. “I struggle with severe motion sickness and I had nausea when I was elevated above the rink because I am terrified of heights, and it was the same when I took part in The Jump.”
Gareth was married to his childhood sweetheart, Jemma, until 2007 when they divorced, two years before he came out as the first openly gay rugby player.
In 2019, Gareth announced that he was HIV positive and filmed a documentary with Prince Harry. He confessed to the Duke of Sussex that initially he felt like he had been handed a death sentence. But slowly Gareth came to terms with his condition and decided to show the world that there is life after an HIV diagnosis.
“I think if you speak to most people who have an HIV diagnosis, they feel like it’s kind of a second chance at life, which is how I feel,” he says. “I think when you have a second chance at something, then you look at the mistakes you made in the initial stages of your life and make sure that you don’t make them again. And you enjoy life a lot more, and that was my experience.
“It was so great to work with Harry on the HIV documentary because it attracted so much attention and it really raised awareness of HIV,” says Gareth now. “Harry is an amazing person and it was great to have somebody of his profile to support it.”
Last October Gareth was awarded a CBE for services to HIV and sport and although he hasn’t had a chance to go to Buckingham Palace yet because of the pandemic, he can’t wait to collect the award.
In 2018, he was the victim of a homophobic assault in Cardiff. He asked South Wales Police to punish the 16-year-old assailant by way of restorative justice.
And he hopes that by participating in Celebrity Best Home Cook he can challenge stereotypes.
“I was born in the 1970s. There weren’t many people then who were openly gay on a cooking show living with their husband and a stepdaughter. So even though we’ve moved on, I still remember where we came from. So I think, that’s why it’s still really important for me to be able to highlight that diversity. Highlight it, because we’ve forgotten some people were prejudiced.
“It’s a good reason for other people to say, ‘you know what, maybe I don’t need to hide who I am, because it’s not as bad as it used to be’.”
DURING his marriage, Gareth and his ex-wife suffered three miscarriages. But now he’s a stepdad to Stephen’s daughter, he is loving parenthood.
“Being a stepfather has really enriched me, and I believe everything I’ve got in my life now is because I’m not trying to be somebody else and I am not living in denial. So now being that person that I wanted to be for a long time, has given me everything I’ve ever wanted in my life.”
As for the future, plans for a film made about his life with either Mickey Rourke or Tom Hardy playing him appear to be slowly inching forwards.
“When it comes to making a film, I just say, yeah it could happen in 2021, there’s a lot of cogs in the chain that need to all come together first,” he says coyly. “I’m genuinely not allowed to say anything.”
● Celebrity Best Home Cook starts on BBC One at 9pm tomorrow