Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test is back for its fourth season, and along with the usual crop of reality star contestants is one rather surprising participant: Jussie Smollett.
The former Empire star — whose career largely imploded in 2019 after he claimed to be the victim of a heinous crime that was later alleged to be a staged attack — makes his return to Fox for the competition series, which follows 18 celebrities taking on a series of challenges that mirror those of military special forces training.
At a L.A. press event for the show on Tuesday, Smollett — who did interviews alongside Real Housewives of Atlanta alum Eva Marcille — told The Hollywood Reporter that he had been asked to do the show three times and was convinced after watching Kyla Pratt compete on the third season.
“It was just a way to look at yourself in the mirror and you’re just like, ‘Yeah, let’s do this. How badass am I? I don’t know but I’m about to find out.’ And then you go, and you’re like, ‘I ain’t no badass, I’m not a badass at all,’” he said of the experience. “There’s no masking, there’s no way to try to go back and clean something up or make yourself look better; there’s no crisis PR person to call, there’s nobody. You’re just left to fully surrender and do it or not.”
Fresh off of participating in Netflix documentary The Truth About Jussie Smollett?, the actor and singer noted that he cozied up to Marcille for tips on how to navigate the world of reality TV, taking away that “you ain’t gotta be crazy, you ain’t gotta be a mess on reality TV. And I love reality TV. Baddies all day.”
Smollett also teased his next steps after Special Forces, which include releasing a new album on Sept. 30 as well as having “just turned in my latest script that I wrote, and I’ll be directing and shooting it in London in January.” He previously wrote, directed and starred in indie The Lost Holliday in 2024.
Among the other stars competing on this season of Special Forces include The Valley‘s Brittany Cartwright, gold medal-winning gymnast Shawn Johnson East, Heisman winner Johnny Manziel, Sister Wives‘ Kody Brown and Real Housewives of New Jersey star Teresa Giudice.
Cartwright joked that when it came to preparing for the show, she didn’t ask former Vanderpump Rules co-star Tom Sandoval (who took part in season two) for advice — “I haven’t talked to him very much recently” — but “I was this close to asking [season three contestant] Denise Richards because I heard her breast implant popped and I was like, ‘Do I have to be scared about that?!’” (Cartwright did confirm she ended up being safe on that front.)
Giudice also said she spoke to Richards and season one’s Kenya Moore, and “they were like ‘It’s no joke. It’s not like people think, it’s on TV so it’s fake.’ No, it’s real.”
Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test premieres Sept. 25 on Fox.