Eddie Hall won Sidemen’s “Inside” by combining physical dominance with a surprisingly strategic social game — controlling challenges, avoiding elimination, and making the right moves when it mattered most in the final.
When the Season 3 cast was announced, nobody was looking at Eddie Hall as the obvious winner. The format rewards social navigation, strategic alliances, and the kind of influencer instinct that comes from spending years reading online audiences. Eddie Hall — aka The Beast — is a retired strongman competitor who set a 500kg deadlift world record and won the 2017 World’s Strongest Man competition. He is not, by any conventional measure, an influencer.
He is also, as it turned out, exactly the kind of person the “Inside” house could not figure out how to eliminate.
Who Is Eddie Hall?
Beyond his strongman career, Hall has ventured into boxing and MMA, launched his own podcast called “The Good, the Bad and The Beast,” and made his acting debut in the 2023 film Expend4bles.
He is married with four children and has built a massive online following through fitness and lifestyle content — 5.4 million Instagram followers, 2.8 million on TikTok, and 3.45 million on YouTube. He came into the house as the oldest and physically largest contestant by a considerable margin, and the one with the least to prove to a social media audience.
That turned out to be an advantage nobody anticipated.
How the Show Works
“Inside” locks celebrity and internet personality contestants in a house for a week where they compete in various challenges. Everything they buy or do costs money from the prize fund, which starts at £1 million. Spending on the tuck shop, failing challenges, and giving in to temptations all drain the pot. From Season 3 onward, the format changed so that only one contestant could win — no more split or steal decision at the end.
Eliminations happen by group vote. The social game matters enormously. And the prize fund shrinks every time someone makes a selfish or impulsive choice — which, in a house full of content creators accustomed to instant gratification, happened more than Eddie would have liked.
His Strategy: Spend Smart, Not Nothing
Eddie’s approach wasn’t about refusing to touch the prize fund at all — it was about spending with intention rather than impulse. He made several notable expenditures that shaped his game. He spent money to frame Alhan, a calculated social move that shifted suspicion and protected his position in the house.
He dropped £50,000 on a Birkin bag for Chloe Ferry — although he never admitted it on the show. It was later revealed at the reunion, where he teased Chloe that it wasn’t her, but ultimately gave it to her.
When the house had the immunity auctioned, he spent nearly £150,000 to purchase immunity from elimination rather than risk going home over something he couldn’t control. It is worth noting that Eddie mentioned it was a terrible mistake, and he did not understand the rules of the game.
Eddie wasn’t in the house to preserve the prize fund at all costs — he was in the house to win, and he understood the difference between spending that protects your position and spending that just drains the pot for no return. Every major outlay he made bought him something concrete. That discipline of purpose, rather than discipline of abstinence, is what separated him from the contestants who spent impulsively.
The Box of Whispers Moment
On Day 6, Harry introduced the Box of Whispers — a secret nomination system where contestants could write down one person’s name to nominate. Alhan nominated Chian Reynolds, Chian nominated Alhan. Then Ben and Eddie agreed to nominate each other.
That last detail matters. Eddie and Ben Azelart had built enough mutual respect to make a gentleman’s agreement inside a game designed to make those agreements impossible. Ben followed through. Eddie followed through. In a season full of alliances that fractured and votes that blindsided people, that moment of straightforward honesty stood out. It also demonstrated Eddie’s understanding that being trusted — genuinely trusted — was worth more in that house than any individual strategic move.
The Final: Button Puzzle Against Marlon
The final challenge came down to Eddie and Marlon Lundgren Garcia in a 1v1 button puzzle. The two finalists faced a row of buttons with the Inside logo behind them. To win, they had to light up every letter of the logo. Each row had three buttons, but only one would advance them to the next letter. Pressing the wrong button reset the sign and handed control to the other player.
It was a game of nerve and patience — not strength, not social maneuvering, not content creation instinct. Just composure under pressure, turn by turn.
Eddie won, thanks to a great game of eenie-meenie-minie-moe.
The Prize — And What He Did With It
Eddie Hall won the final 1v1 against Marlon, taking home £177,894. The prize fund had been reduced significantly from its £1 million starting point across the week — a testament to how much the house had collectively spent and failed.
Then, in the kind of move that made everyone who had spent the week rooting against him reconsider: Eddie split the prize money with Marlon after the show. He did not have to. The format gave it all to him. He did it anyway.
For a man who spent the entire week refusing to touch the prize fund, giving half of it away afterward was an entirely consistent ending. He came to win. He won. And then he decided that winning alone was not the point.
“Inside” Season 3 is streaming now on Netflix.
Want the daily reality TV drama — no spam, just the good stuff?
Subscribe