Source: Entertainment Weekly

The fourth season of Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test was stacked with former NFL and NBA players, but it was a former Olympic gymnast and an influencer who triumphed.

Shawn Johnson East and Gia Giudice were two of the five contestants left going into the season 4 finale, along with Sister Wives’ Kody Brown; Johnson East’s husband, former footballer Andrew East; and Giudice’s fellow influencer Brianna “Chickenfry” LaPaglia.

The task at hand focused on the recruits’ ability to stay strong mentally.

The Directing Staff decided that Andrew East and Kody Brown had not done so, after they brought in professional interrogators to question the celebrities, who had not slept for almost 24 hours during a simulation of being captured behind enemy lines. They had to stick to prepared stories and never say they were with the military.

During Andrew East’s questioning, about why he had been where he was and who he was with, he told the interrogator that he thought there had been a mistake, which did not go over well.

“No, no, no, no, no,” East was told. “Let me tell you something. You’ve made the mistake, son.”

As DS watched what was happening on a monitor nearby, Rudy Reyes said that East had “no idea how to read the room or to execute some of the basic principles of training.” They also disliked that he failed to stand up for fellow recruits during the task.

His armband was pulled shortly after, with DS citing that he “did not apply the tactics and the training that was explained to you in this portion of the course.”

Next was Brown, who the DS found to have done the same thing.

LaPaglia made it further, though. She voluntarily withdrew with, as the narrator said, just 10 more minutes left on the course. What stopped her was the final thing recruits were asked to do: step into a coffin and experience a simulation of being buried alive.

“No, no, no. You can’t do that to me. All right, yes, I lied,” she said before blowing her cover. “I’m here with Special Forces.”

Moments later, Johnson East and Giudice were told that they’d passed not only this phase of the course, but the entire experience.

“I can’t believe we did this,” Giudice said before hugging her costar.

“Shawn and I are gonna be bonded for life,” Giudice, who struggled early in the show, said in a confessional. “We completed selection. I truly didn’t think that I was gonna be able to do it. I knew I had to persevere and push through for myself and my family and also, most importantly, the DS, because they really believed in me.”

For Johnson East, it was also a big moment.

“They literally strip away people’s core, and it’s a very humbling experience,” said the gymnast, who had been told by DS that she should be less robotic, a habit she took on in gymnastics. “I learned that you can’t just tune the world out and get your job done. You have to be able to balance both.”

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