Who is The Giant on Gladiators? All about Jamie Christian-Johal as he boasts about anabolic steroids on YouTube videos

The Giant – originally named Jamie Christian-Johal – has been unveiled as one of the resident "Gladiators" as the show launched a reboot on BBC One last week.

The legendary competition game show aired its first episode on January 13, attracting 6.4 million viewers, as per The Sun. As more viewers turned to the internet to learn more about the Giant, a particular YouTube video from October 2019 - that he was a part of – has gone viral.

According to The Sun, when BBC was informed of the video, the bosses "went into a crisis," admitting how it could be a "disastrous" look to have a "Gladiator" claiming steroids were fine.

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The Giant: former firefighter and bodybuilder, now a resident "Gladiator"

The Giant, training (left), on vacation with wife (right) (Image via Instagram/@akathegiant)

Originally named Jamie Christian-Johal, the Giant is 6ft 5in tall, earning him his nickname. Jamie, currently 37, was born in 1986 and is from Derbyshire. Giant is married to Katie Christian, a hormone practitioner with a teenage son named Harley.

Jamie began competing professionally as a bodybuilder in 2009, before which he worked as a firefighter for the Derbyshire Fire and Rescue Service for seven years. His first competition as a bodybuilder was at the Arnold Classic Europe Amateur in 2016, in which he won 9th place. In 2018, Jamie bagged his first win in bodybuilding as he was placed first in the NPC Worldwide Ben Weider Classic UK Men’s Bodybuilding – Class D.

In 2020, Jamie won 4th place at the British Grand Prix Pro Men’s Bodybuilding competition, while in the following year, he bagged the 8th position in the Arnold Classic UK Pro Men’s Bodybuilding.

Aaron Reed, who is 6 ft 7 in tall, is Jamie’s only rival in the bodybuilding world. But since the former never achieved a Pro Card, it inevitably makes the Giant the tallest bodybuilder in open-class bodybuilding.

In a 2023 interview with The Sun, Jamie had announced that he had quit steroids in 2022.

“I stopped competing as a bodybuilder in October 2022 and responsibly came off steroids. I am no longer a professional bodybuilder and am no longer taking steroids and do not advocate the use of them.”

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The Giant's YouTube video from 2019 attracts attention from the Gladiators viewers

After the first episode of Gladiators aired last Saturday, many viewers searched the internet to find out who the Giant was. Upon searching his name on Google, one of the videos that turned up could potentially be problematic for BBC - a 2019 video posted by the TrainedbyJP channel titled “Take this and you’ll get big.”

In the video, Jamie boasts about the use of anabolic steroids, which could prove to be “a disaster for BBC,” according to the news outlet.

In the video, the Giant is seen sitting next to an amateur bodybuilder, sharing how the world of competitive bodybuilders is rife with steroid abuse. He is also seen boasting about his usage of anabolic steroids in it.

Anabolic steroids, a class C drug, are the synthetic version of testosterone that can only be purchased from pharmacists with a prescription. Athletes and bodybuilders often use them to help build muscles or improve performance.

Selling these steroids outside of a pharmacy is strictly illegal and can result in a jail term of up to 14 years if caught. Infertility, shrunken testicles, erectile dysfunction, and reduced sperm count are all the side effects of anabolic steroid abuse.

Besides, Jamie Christian-Johal, the other resident Gladiators in the 2024 series include Fury (Jodie Ounsley), Fire (Montell Douglas), and Nitro (Harry Aikines-Aryeetey).