{"id":10001,"date":"2025-09-11T17:37:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-11T17:37:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/10001\/"},"modified":"2025-09-11T17:37:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T17:37:08","slug":"jussie-smollett-on-joining-reality-tv-with-special-forces-whats-next","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/10001\/","title":{"rendered":"Jussie Smollett on Joining Reality TV With Special Forces, What’s Next"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tSpecial Forces<\/a>: World\u2019s Toughest Test is back for its fourth season<\/a>, and along with the usual crop of reality star contestants is one rather surprising participant: Jussie Smollett<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe former Empire star \u2014 whose career largely imploded in 2019 after he claimed to be the victim of a heinous crime<\/a> that was later alleged to be a staged attack \u2014 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. <\/p>\n

\n\tAt a L.A. press event for the show on Tuesday, Smollett \u2014 who did interviews alongside Real Housewives of Atlanta alum Eva Marcille \u2014 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. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt was just a way to look at yourself in the mirror and you\u2019re just like, \u2018Yeah, let\u2019s do this. How badass am I? I don\u2019t know but I\u2019m about to find out.\u2019 And then you go, and you\u2019re like, \u2018I ain\u2019t no badass, I\u2019m not a badass at all,’\u201d he said of the experience. \u201cThere\u2019s no masking, there\u2019s no way to try to go back and clean something up or make yourself look better; there\u2019s no crisis PR person to call, there\u2019s nobody. You\u2019re just left to fully surrender and do it or not.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFresh off of participating in Netflix documentary The Truth About Jussie Smollett?<\/a>, 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 \u201cyou ain\u2019t gotta be crazy, you ain\u2019t gotta be a mess on reality TV. And I love reality TV. Baddies all day.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSmollett also teased his next steps after Special Forces, which include releasing a new album on Sept. 30 as well as having \u201cjust turned in my latest script that I wrote, and I\u2019ll be directing and shooting it in London in January.\u201d He previously wrote, directed and starred in indie The Lost Holliday in 2024.<\/p>\n

\n\tAmong the other stars competing on this season of Special Forces include The Valley\u2018s Brittany Cartwright<\/a>, gold medal-winning gymnast Shawn Johnson East, Heisman winner Johnny Manziel, Sister Wives\u2018 Kody Brown and Real Housewives of New Jersey star Teresa Giudice<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\n\tCartwright joked that when it came to preparing for the show, she didn\u2019t ask former Vanderpump Rules co-star Tom Sandoval (who took part in season two) for advice \u2014 \u201cI haven\u2019t talked to him very much recently\u201d \u2014 but \u201cI was this close to asking [season three contestant] Denise Richards because I heard her breast implant popped and I was like, \u2018Do I have to be scared about that?!’\u201d (Cartwright did confirm she ended up being safe on that front.)<\/p>\n

\n\tGiudice also said she spoke to Richards and season one\u2019s Kenya Moore, and \u201cthey were like \u2018It\u2019s no joke. It\u2019s not like people think, it\u2019s on TV so it\u2019s fake.\u2019 No, it\u2019s real.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSpecial Forces: World\u2019s Toughest Test premieres Sept. 25 on Fox. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Special Forces: World\u2019s Toughest Test is back for its fourth season, and along with the usual crop of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10002,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[10981,146,2323,85,46,10982,1979,10983,10984],"class_list":{"0":"post-10001","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-brittany-cartwright","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-events","11":"tag-il","12":"tag-israel","13":"tag-jussie-smollett","14":"tag-red-carpet","15":"tag-special-forces","16":"tag-teresa-giudice"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10001\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}