The Chase star Shaun Wallace has given fans a glimpse into life before fame with a throwback snap.
The 64-year-old, better known on the ITV gameshow as The Dark Destroyer, tends to keep his private life out of the spotlight.
However, he recently shared an image of his travels to Kingston, Jamaica, more than 30 years ago.
‘Wish I was only 52 miles from Kingston town and what it would be to be that age again,’ Shaun wrote, telling one fan he was 28 years old at the time.
‘It looks absolutely beautiful there,’ fan Patricia replied, while Samantah wrote: ‘You’ve not changed – Dark Destroyer!’
Another remarked that the ‘only difference’ was Shaun’s lack of hair these days compared to his full scalp in the picture.
‘Great classic photo bringing back good memories. You’ll have to go back to that spot to see what’s changed,’ Jennifer said.
In 2022, Shaun took part in ITV’s DNA Journey, alongside his co-star Anne Hegerty, where they travelled to Jamaica and he was surprised to discover he was only 49% Nigerian.
‘I’m almost half Nigerian – that is a really big surprise,’ he said.
‘It does clarify what I’ve been thinking for years, that my forefathers on the African continent were basically sold off in their millions.
‘It is very, very emotional to know for sure in terms of the DNA discovery that I know for certain and for definite now where my roots originate from.’
Shaun, who has joined the likes of Anne Hegerty and Paul Sinha on The Chase since 2009, rose to fame after becoming a Mastermind champion in 2004, before starring on gameshows including Fifteen to One and The Weakest Link.
He is also a practicing barrister, having been called to the Bar after graduating in 1983, and works as a part-time lecturer, visiting schools to educate students on law.
Earlier this year, Shaun revealed his ‘finances and whole life’ have changed since his first TV appearance 20 years ago.
‘A lot. That’s all I’ll say. How many zeros? Well into six-zero territory and my earnings have increased massively since I’ve started working in TV,’ he told The Times when asked how much he earned.
‘I got paid well as a barrister but I’m now earning about ten times the amount I was before. I still practise, though, so I have a dual income.
‘Probably 70% of my income comes from my TV work and 30% from the legal side. Everything changed when I won Mastermind in 2004. Not just my finances, my whole life.’
Reflecting on how he is now ‘far, far better off financially’ Shaun said he is now ‘sitting pretty’ as he ‘treated money with respect and wasn’t wasteful with it’.
Shaun isn’t the only chaser whose life before fame has been revealed in recent years.
Jenny Ryan
Jenny Ryan, known as The Vixen on The Chase, joined Bradley Walsh’s quiz show in 2015.
However, her first TV appearance came more than a decade earlier, when she helped the University of Leeds help reach the semi-finals of University Challenge.
Three years later, she appeared on Mastermind, with Buffy the Vampire Slayer as her specialist subject, and featured in both series of Are You an Egghead? in 2008 and 2009.
Then, in 2010, she found success on Only Connect as a member of the team The Gamblers, who won the third series of the show.
As well as quiz shows, Jenny has appeared on Celebrity MasterChef and The X Factor: Celebrity in 2019.
But before TV, Jenny held far less glamorous roles, telling The Mirror in 2019: ‘I was doing a lot of different admin jobs all around the northwest.
‘I was a PA, I was selling radiators, I was working admin at a tip. I was doing all sorts of things, so when this came along it couldn’t have been a better time.
‘I was quizzing quite a lot, and until a couple of years before that I was working as a writer in TV, but the work is so seasonal I just couldn’t sustain it.
‘These little, lovely jobs were definitely sustaining me. You get to meet a lot of people and learn a lot of different things and I think that’s no bad thing – but not knowing what job you’ll be doing one week to the next is not good for the stress!’
She revealed Anne recommended Jenny for The Chase but ‘there was quite a lot of jeopardy involved’.
However, her skills had been gained since she was a child, after her late grandad Kevin, who was a devoted quizzer, brought her up with a talent for general knowledge.
Paul Sinha
Paul, aka The Sinnerman, is not only a quizzing legend but a qualified doctor.
The 54-year-old joined The Chase in 2011, having already appeared on The Weakest Link, Mastermind, Brain of Britain and Are You An Egghead?
Before his life on TV, he became a GP in 1995, after qualifying as a doctor from St George’s Hospital medical school in the 90s.
While training, he took part in the medical school’s annual revue, and developed his taste for stand-up comedy.
‘There’s a mordent humour in medicine that lends itself to comedy, and there’s a nerdiness about comedy that lends itself to quizzes,’ he said in a 2011 interview with EdinburghFestivals.
He went on to perform at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival nine times, and has appeared on The Alternative Comedy Experience as well as various radio programmes.
In 2019, Paul spoke about turning to quizzes and joked it was a ‘midlife crisis’.
According to The Express, he said: ‘As a kid, I quizzed, I represented my local junior school and senior school at quizzing, and as a student I used to supplement my income by playing quiz machines.
‘But there’s something about being a full-time doctor that real life takes over and you don’t really have time to quiz.’
He added: ‘It was more when I’d given up the medicine to become a full-time comedian that I had time to try to get good at quiz.
‘Midlife crisis I think they call it!’
Anne Hegerty
Anne began her career as a journalist, joining The Chase for its second series in 2010.
She initially worked as a reporter at the South Wales Argus in Newport before moving to Manchester, and later worked as a ghostwriter.
‘I actually once wrote two books under the name Richard Scarry. (With his permission, I should add. He couldn’t do EVERYTHING himself.) They were a bit rubbish and nobody bought them,’ she revealed on Twitter in 2019.
‘They were sticker books. The publishing firm I was working for had a licence to cannibalise Scarry books and use the art in other books (provided we cleared the new text and storylines with his son Huck).’
The I’m A Celebrity star, now known as The Governess, started her quizzing on TV in 1987, when she appeared on Mastermind.
Before her big break on The Chase, she revealed she struggled with debt and couldn’t afford things like bus fares.
She told The Sun: ‘I was struggling, I was hungry, I was a freelance copy editor but had very little work.
‘I had to go to Asda, it’s the best supermarket if you’re poor as they have a good basic range, Sainsbury’s is for rich, posh people.
‘I would take vouchers, do sums in my head just to get some eggs and bread or a tin of cheap Irish stew. I’d be starving and want two tins but couldn’t afford it. The poorer you are the hungrier you feel.
‘I would walk three miles from my house into Manchester city centre if I got work, as I couldn’t afford the £1.40 bus fare.
‘One of the worst nights was when I walked into Manchester to go to the Mastermind Club, a society for anybody who has ever sat in the show’s big black chair.
‘I didn’t have money to buy a drink and nobody offered. I spent the entire evening at this table at the back of the pub alone, with tears rolling down my cheeks, thinking, “Will someone just buy me a f***ing drink, please?”
‘It was dreadful. I don’t know where I’d be without The Chase, it changed my life.
‘I love having lots of money, I think it’s brilliant. I’ve been poor and I’ve been rich and rich is better. There are very few problems that money can’t solve.’
Mark Labbett
Before becoming a household name as The Beast on The Chase, Mark had a very different job as a PE and maths supply teacher in Newport, South Wales, after a mathematics degree from Oxford University.
He turned to quizzing after using quiz machines to supplement his income while working at Butlins holiday camp.
Speaking to The Guardian in 2007 Mark explained: ‘I discovered the quiz machines in the bar.’
‘I really enjoyed playing and it was also lucrative. At the beginning of the week I banked my £55 wage, except for £3 or £4 which I played on the machines. By the end of the week, I’d have £200 in coins.’
In the same interview, Mark revealed his passion for quizzes when he was winning thousands.
‘The money is really just an added bonus. Frankly, I’d enter most of these things if the prize was just a bottle of wine,’ he said.
The year before, Mark appeared as a contestant on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? where he walked away with £32,000.
He’d also appeared on The People’s Quiz, Mastermind (where his specialist subject was the Olympics and again where it was The Simpsons), Countdown, BrainTeaser University Challenge.
Darragh Ennis
The newest member of The Chasers joined in 2020, Darragh Ennis, known onscreen as The Menace.
The 44-year-old appeared on the show as a contestant in 2017, after which a producer rung him to ask if he’d like to audition for a role as a quizzer.
He previously told Metro: ‘I got a call after I’d appeared on the show as a contestant in 2017 from one of the producers and she asked me, was I interested? Once I’d established it was really her I did some auditions and started swotting up.
‘They’d bring me in every few months to run through questions as if I was on the show to see how I would do, the points where I was getting questions wrong, what my weak points were.
‘So I would go away and work on them, then come back and try to improve. At the end it was down to a couple of us and we did some screen tests in the studio and they picked me. It took a couple of years.’
As well as working on The Chase, his day job is as a postdoctoral researcher at Oxford, which he admitted ‘overwhelmingly takes more of my time’.
‘The Chase is part-time. I’ve taken a cut in my contract at the university to give myself extra days off. I still work 90% as a researcher,’ he said.
The Chase airs weekdays at 5pm on ITV1.
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