Celeb SAS star Billy Billingham's life in the US, wife and lowest point as life 'imploded' after double loss

Billy Billingham
-Credit: (Image: Reach Publishing Services Limited)


Mark Billingham, known as Billy, puts the celebrities through their paces as the Chief Instructor on SAS: Who Dares Wins. The hit Channel 4 show will kick off tonight (Sunday, 22 September) as we watch a string of famous faces take on the hugely tough SAS selection.

Some of this year's celebrities include John Barrowman, Pete Wicks and Bianca Gascoigne. They will be put through their paces by Billy, who ended his military career as a Sergeant Major in the Special Air Service after 27 years in the Armed Forces.

But what do we know about Billy and his life outside of the TV screen? Below we look at his life in the US with his wife, his job rubbing shoulders with A-list celebs and the heartbreaking lowest period in his life after a double family loss.

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Billy Billingham's life in US with wife

Billy, 59, was born in Solihull and grew up in Walsall. He attended the King Edward VI Camp Hill School for Boys in King's Heath, and lived in that general area "right the way through university" while attending the nearby University of Birmingham.

After a career in the military, he now resides in Florida with his second wife, American fashion designer Julie Colombino. The pair tied the knot in March 2019.

Julie has led a hugely successful career, having founded the eco-conscious footwear label, Deux Mains. Billy has children and grandchildren, but keeps their relationships private. He previously said: “My kids are wonderful and we get on great – and now I have grandchildren and I am making up for all the time I missed with my own kids by giving them as much of me as I can.”

Billy Billingham's lowest point after double loss

Despite being shot at, stabbed, blown up and held hostage, one of Billy's toughest times came after leaving the Armed Forces. Mark experienced one of the toughest times in his whole life when in a three-week period, he lost his mum and dad.

To add to the devastation, their deaths also coincided with his divorce from his first wife. He has spoken openly about how hard it was to leave his role as Sergeant Major in the Special Air Service after 27 years in the Armed Forces.

He revealed how hard it was to find a job, pay rent and even navigate dentist appointments after being completely looked after in the Army. “It felt like everything was imploding on me. I was stranded,” he recalled. “It was a whole new world for me. I was scared to talk to people. I couldn’t tell them what I’d been doing for years. The Special Forces world is all cloak and dagger, no one knows who you are or what you are.”

Billy Billingham's £10k a month job working with top celebs

After leaving the Armed Forces, Billy landed a high-profile role as a bodyguard for celebrities such as Sir Michael Caine and Tom Cruise, before becoming the head of security for Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. Speaking to the Mail on Sunday about this time, he said: "I earned really good money – three times as much as I was earning in the military. I think it was more than £10,000 a month."

Billy Billingham's heartbreak after best friend's suicide

A friend with whom Billy had spent his whole career took his life 10 years after leaving the Army. He told The Telegraph: “I joined the Parachute Regiment with him and then the SAS after him. We were so close. In all the time I knew him we’d never been on the phone more than 10 seconds, just long enough to arrange to go down the pub. Then one night he called me up and we were on the phone for 15 minutes and he kept saying: ‘It’s great being a granddad, isn’t it?’ And I thought: ‘This isn’t him’. I was waiting for the punchline. I ignored it, but I knew something wasn’t right. Now I know I should have gone and seen him.”

He added: “We all lost friends while we were serving. You knew when you went out on operation, you might not come back – but losing a friend to suicide is never acceptable. He was more stable than I was, I believed. He had a wife and kids, he had a business, he had money, he had no issues – we believed he had no issues. And to this day we still don’t know why. And that’s the hardest thing.”