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Interview ‘I winged it for 17 years and continue to wing it
now’: Joe Marler on rugby, retirement and role-play slang
DIR By: deadlyfrom5yardsout
Date: July 6, 2026, 5:20 am
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The former England prop talks about his concern for modern
players, his style and how he deals with fame
By No Helmets Required
Wed 1 Jul 2026 12.20 BST
As England prepare for their first match in the Nations
Championship against South Africa and The Celebrity Traitors
returns to our screens, Joe Marler – recently central to both –
joins us for a chat about player welfare, Stephen Fry’s slang
and the importance of men looking out for each other.
How much did you plan your exit route from rugby? Did your
post-rugby career just fall into place?
“I would say my post-rugby experiences have followed my rugby
experiences in the sense that I winged it for 17 years and
continue to wing it now. There’s a distinct lack of planning on
my behalf. I’m just very fortunate that I’ve got some lovely
people around me who are far more intelligent and attentive to
detail, and navigate me in the right ways.”
You can’t wing being a world-class prop. You must have known you
were very, very good.
“I was half-decent at what I did, but I was world-class at
making other people bad at it. It was a combination of being too
lazy to get any better and knowing my limit. A proper player,
like Owen Farrell, loved the sport, did everything and it became
his life. I was more interested in having fun and enjoying
myself. I hit my ceiling and went: ‘Well, I’m not really gonna
get much better than this. I know what I can do and what I
can’t, and I just continue to wing it until people find out.’”
So, you were a disrupter, stopping other people doing what they
want to do?
“My ex-teammates and my employers would probably still use that
word to describe me.”
You kept an unusually low profile on The Celebrity Traitors and
nearly won it.
“I had an advantage in that most of them didn’t know who I was,
so they semi-forgot I was there, which bought me a couple of
days’ grace from being killed, then I was fortunate on the days
I won shields, so it all fell into place. A hybrid of being dumb
and being able to play dumber than I am got me as far as it did
– plus my competitive nature. I seemed to be one of the few
people actually interested in trying to win, as opposed to a lot
of the chin-wagging: ‘Oh, darling, do you remember that party we
went to?’ ‘Hang on,’ I thought ‘we’re trying to play a bloody
game here.’”
It was a shame we didn’t get to see those fascinating celebrity
conversations.
“Well, I think they’d be fascinating to the point of how mundane
they were! There’s all these superstars and they sit down having
a chat like normal friends catching up. One that I would have
loved them to show was a brilliant conversation over lunch
off-screen between Cat Burns and Stephen Fry about different
LGBTQ slang and role-play names. I sat there being educated but
trying to chip in as much as I could. Cat was saying: ‘Oh, you’d
be more of a dom femme.’ I’m like: ‘What’s the dom femme?’ We
talked about pillow princesses, all this different language.”
You’d be a bear, wouldn’t you?
“One hundred per cent! I’m fully aware of how much of a bear I
am, I very much lean into my big bear following. But I was just
thinking: ‘Wow, this is brilliant, just such a collision of
different cultures and worlds.’ That needs to be the spin-off
show: the other conversations that went on. It was great fun.”
You were extremely perceptive on Traitors, while some really
academic stars couldn’t see what you did. Looking back, were
there rugby teammates who wanted you or the team to fail?
“What I found would often happen was the senior players would
get together, have a coffee, and if there’s stuff going on that
needs addressing, we’d all be aligned. Then someone would chirp
up: ‘Why don’t you go and tell the coaches that we’re training
too hard?’ They knew full well I’d take that and run with it
because it was in my nature to be spiky and an asshole, to be
honest. So I’d go and address it with the coaches, say: ‘We all
think …’ And then look around and there’d be no one else there.”
‘A hybrid of being dumb and being able to play dumber than I am
got me as far as it did,’ says Marler of The Traitors.
As performance director for Team England Rugby, do you talk to
players about post-rugby careers, as not everyone can wing it?
“Of course. I just wish I’d had some perspective earlier on in
my England career. I wouldn’t have wasted energy worrying about
unnecessary things that I couldn’t control, that led to me not
enjoying environments as much as I should. I was in camp the
other day trying to get that message across. When you’re in it,
the rugby world feels like the biggest thing in the world and
all eyes are on you. Then when you’re out of it, you realise 70%
of the country don’t even know what rugby is! Their first
question is always: ‘Did you play rugby union or rugby league?’
I wish I’d have known that earlier, because it would’ve freed me
up. Yes, you’re in a pressured environment, but you’re doing
something that you love, that’s ultimately for entertainment and
fun. Enjoy it.”
Most England players haven’t had more than a couple of weeks off
in the last year. Where is the player welfare in the calendar?
“I feel really sorry for the new generation. In some of my
seasons, I’d be playing 33-35 games, a long slog, and then at
the end I’d have a tour. I’d get so excited, not just pulling on
an England shirt, but going to South Africa, playing three Tests
against these massive units. Yes, it was hard work but it was
that traditional touring experience, spending four weeks with
30, 40 lads. It’s not that the Test matches were meaningless,
but whether we won 3-0 or lost 2-1 was irrelevant in the grand
scheme of things. It’s the life experience, seeing a new
country, a different culture, an opportunity to develop younger
guys in an environment that doesn’t necessarily count for
anything, like a World Cup. But now they’ve brought in this
Nations Championship instead.”
The idea was to turn end-of-season tours into competitive games,
but now England have three games in three continents.
“I get it from a financial point of view, and trying to make the
global calendar more aligned, but this team has to fly to South
Africa, play a Test match at altitude, come home, spend the week
in Liverpool and play Fiji at Everton, then fly over to
Argentina. What?! All the best with that! It’s a work in
progress, that’s the best politician’s answer I can give.
Players want to play for England, to experience as much as they
can. Ideally, they’re doing it with less travel and more rest.
But that’s a fight between players, country and club. When you
have two masters, it’s quite a battle. I’m trying my hardest for
them.”
Shouldn’t players be able to say to England: ‘I have a wife and
three kids so don’t want to go away for a month. Feel free to
pick me in October’?
“That’s the alternative route and I actively encourage them to
make those decisions. I got to that point in my career. I stood
down in 2016 because I lost the plot and needed a break. And
then again, in 2018, when I was fried. It takes a bit of courage
to go: ‘Actually, I need to have a break.’ They worry they won’t
get picked again but, if I turned to a head coach and said:
‘Mate, I’m knackered, I’m struggling. I need to stay at home,
rest, recuperate and be ready to go rock October,’ and he said:
‘Oh, you’re soft, I’m not having it,’ I wouldn’t want to work
under him anyway. I know that’s easier said than done. That’s
why they need people fighting their battles for them.”
You’re big on men’s mental health and feeling more comfortable
to say what you think. Does that explain why you’re ‘giving the
nod’ on Jacamo’s TV ads now?
“I’ve never been a style icon. I’m a shorts and a T-shirt man
and the bigger I got, everything in your everyday high street
shops was a bit of a squeeze. So the ‘Get the nod’ campaign just
appealed to me, encouraging men to compliment other men. Saying:
‘That’s a really nice top, mate,’ is a rarity. Blokes wonder
what’s coming next. But it makes them feel good about
themselves, so why don’t we do it more? It’s important.”
Your profile is way bigger now than it ever was. You can’t go to
your local shops or take the dog for a walk without strangers
saying: ‘Morning, Joe,’ now. Do you like that? “If I’m on my
own, I’m more than happy. I love meeting new people, hearing
their stories. But it does grind me a bit when I’m with my kids.
It’s not fair on them. People go: ‘Well, you sold your soul,
deal with it.’ But I’m also entitled to say: ‘Piss off. Not
today. I’m with my kids.’ At Camp Bestival my eldest daughter,
Maggie, turned to me on the second day and just quietly, said:
‘Do you think today, maybe we could just have you, rather than
you stopping every five minutes, say yes to a photo.’ She was
right. I’d got caught up in it all and forgotten she’s there
behind me.”
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