Eric Roberts, one of Ireland’s most-followed influencers, has finally broken his silence on participating in Netflix’s new reality series, Squid Game: The Challenge.

The show landed on Netflix this morning, dropping the first five episodes, with more to follow in the weeks to come, and sees Eric join 455 contestants, battling it out to snag the life-changing prize of almost $5 million.

Game one was the famous red light/green light challenge, where half of the total contestants were immediately knocked out.

Eric is one of two Irish contestants (one more is from Dublin) to make the cut out of the 100,000 applicants, proudly representing his home county of Donegal, but due to agreements with Netflix, Eric had to keep his involvement a secret all year, telling only some close friends and family.

READ MORE: Netflix’s real life Squid Game in ‘warzone’ chaos as contestants ‘collapse in brutal cold’

Now that the first five episodes have dropped, Eric says: "It’s amazing to be able to finally speak about this! After having to keep such an incredible and totally one-in-a-million experience to myself for so long.

"They took our phones away when we got to London and I went ghost online throughout the filming period. I had so many messages when I finally got my phone back, wondering what had happened, but I couldn’t tell anyone where I was."

The Donegal man known for his impeccable quick wit online continued: "As incredible as the experience was, as you can expect from a reality reenactment of the iconic Squid Games series, we were pushed to our absolute limits. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life.

"The hunger and lack of sleep was horrible, and when you mix that with having to play these high-pressure games it was a real physical and mental battle.

"I was chosen to face some of the most difficult challenges in the games, luck was against me! But I made sure I wasn't going to be eliminated because of bad luck. It's safe to say most people will never experience anything like this in their life."

Speaking about how far he gets in the series, Eric isn't able to say much, due to NDA agreements made with Netflix. However, all he is able to say is that he is "very proud about how far I got. Let's just say I represent Ireland very well."

Five episodes of the new reality series dropped on Netflix Ireland today, with four then following next week and the final episode the week after.

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