Smyrna-based kickboxer Jonathan McNatt won the $10,000 grand prize on the new TBS competition show “I Survived Bear Grylls” Thursday night.
And all he had to do was drink his own pee to do it. Also urine from a pig and horse.
While some may debate whether it can be considered a “win” after doing all that, McNatt shed tears of joy after beating four competitors in several survival challenges.
More than a few viewers may have teared up as well when Grylls immediately called McNatt’s fiancée Jessica DelGiorno after the win. Earlier in the show, McNatt spoke about how much the cash prize meant for his family.
The Bear native was already emotional when he heard DelGiorno’s voice, setting up a sweet moment between the couple, parents of daughter Alexandria Rose, 1. McNatt also has a son Jonathan Charles, 12, who helped him make his tryout videos for the show.
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“I’m standing here in the dark with your husband. Not only, as you know, is he an incredible human being, but he’s also gone and won,” Grylls told her as McNatt wiped tears from his face.
“Oh my God!,” she said before talking with McNatt. “You go baby. You deserve it.”
McNatt’s corrected her in his response: “We deserve it, baby.”
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To get his hands on the two stacks of cash Grylls gave him at the end of the episode, McNatt was put through the wringer.
Good thing he’s also a MMA fighter.
He had to crawl through a muddy swamp to find a dead fish before putting it in his mouth and racing across a tightrope. Then he was buried in a simulated “ice coffin” to mimic the feeling of being in an avalanche, having to find a way out. In the finals, he had to find materials to make a fire in a barrel of swampy water and spark a blaze with what he found.
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In the end, he got his fire going first and raised his arms in victory.
“My purpose was to make Jonathan, my son, proud,” said McNatt, a safety professional for Glasgow-based industrial safety company TekSolv and a trainer at Jack’s Kickboxing Gym in Bear.
“As soon as I let him know, I know he’s going to be super-excited,” he said of his win. “I had him in the back of my head the whole time. He helped me push through it.”
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In an interview with The News Journal/DelawareOnline Friday morning, McNatt said the prize money, which he has not yet received, was all going toward paying bills: “It’s already spent.”
He watched the episode at home with his family, son sitting by his side. When they aired the part where McNatt dedicated the win to Jonathan Charles, he said his son “kind of just looked at me, watered up a bit and gave me a big ol’ hug. At the end of the day, as a man, everything we do is for our family.”
And, no, he has no plans to ever drink pee again.
“Not unless you’re paying me $10,000!” he said, laughing. “If so, then you can line’em up in the bar and I’ll knock’em back.”
Have a story idea? Contact Ryan Cormier of Delaware Online/The News Journal at rcormier@delawareonline.com or (302) 324-2863. Follow him on Facebook (@ryancormier) and Twitter (@ryancormier).
