As the famous daughter of one of the Real Housewives of New Jersey, Gia Giudice is familiar with the inner-workings of glossy reality television, but that experience would provide zero advantage when signing up for Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test, where celebrity recruits are brought back down to earth during a seriously intense course that mimics a number of genuine elements from real-life United States Special Forces selection. While Giudice got off to a shaky start, she outlasted former athletes from the NBA and NFL to make the final cut, but how did she do it? Now back in her civvies, Giudice gave M&F the inside perspective on TV’s most realist reality show.
Despite the immense physicality of the show’s challenges, including being submerged under water, rappelling from flying helicopters, running uphill with sandbags, and even brutally boxing other cast members, Gia says the psychological element is the most difficult aspect of Special Forces. “I would say the course is 90% mental, 10% physical,” she tells M&F. “Because you have to be mentally strong to get yourself through each day.”
Gia Giudice Gave Her All to the ‘Special Forces’ Selection Process
Viewers of Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test look at each challenge and wonder if they could succeed in the same situation, but they often fail to consider the conditions that each contestant finds themselves in, with only basic food and little-to-no-sleep, each obstacle becomes all the greater. “You’re almost, like, warped in time,” explains Giudice. “You really feel like you’re about to go into combat, because we don’t have our phones, we’re disassociated from the real world, and we are there with each other and the DS (the Directing Staff who assign the tasks).”
Unlike most reality-based television shows, the cameras are mostly hidden or stationed at a distance on this one. “We never see production,” explains Giudice. “They’re really not even allowed to talk to us. We know we’re being filmed, but it wasn’t like we felt like we were being filmed, way different than filming a reality TV show like Next Gen or Real Housewives.”
Giudice had initially entered Season 4 of Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test with her mom Teresa, opening up on the show about a difficult period in 2014 when both of her parents were handed prison sentences for fraud and failure to file taxes. While her parents served their time separately,That whole ordeal forced her to grow up quickly in order to help take care of three younger sisters, all while still just a teenager herself. So, entering the “World’s Toughest Test” at 24, the hefty challenge provided Giudice with a chance to finally spread her wings and put herself first, especially when her mom withdrew from the show in episode two, unable to watch her daughter box a fellow contestant in the challenge known as “milling.”
With Mom gone, many observers thought that Giudice would follow, but they underestimated her tenacity. “During that moment, I was like, ‘Am I gonna leave and not put my all into this course?’” she shares. “Because I knew I had more in me.” Behind the scenes, Teresa Giudice had total faith as well. “When she tapped out, she said to the Fox producers, my daughter is gonna win,” reveals Giudice.
Gia Giudice Went From a Shaky Start to an Unshakable Character
The shaky start for Gia Giudice had already begun in week one, when she got tangled up while trying to rappel from a moving helicopter. Fortunately, heights are not one of her biggest fears. “I obviously, I got jammed up,” she recalls. “I’ve done skydiving before, so heights don’t really scare me. I kind of get a thrill from it, oddly,” says the gutsy gal. And, as the weeks went on, Giudice became noticeable stronger and her game face grew more focused, even during those awful challenges that did manage to bring out her biggest fears.
“I would say the tunnels was very tough for me,” she reflects of an infiltration mission where recruits navigated dark, narrow, muddy underground tunnels in order to reach a target. “I kind of had a panic attack even before I went into the tunnel. I didn’t think that I was gonna be able to do it, then the DS pushed me, and they said, ‘If you don’t get in the tunnel, I’m gonna take your armband’. And that was such a fear of mine.”
The fear of having her armband taken away and facing failure would motivate Giudice right to the very end, even after the arduous interrogation process that see’s the final contestants face a monumental grilling. “We were so mentally exhausted,” she tells M&F. “We had been up, probably by the end of interrogation, for 48 hours, no sleep, and during interrogation, you can get water, but you’re not fed. So, it’s pretty brutal, and I think it was the mindset of ‘just get through this.’”
Outlasting NBA and NFL alumni to make the ‘Special Forces’ draft
By the time Gia Giudice completed her interrogation on the final episode, she had outlasted former NBA player Nick Young and former NFL players Andrew East, Randall Cobb, Eric Decker, and Johnny Manziel. The only two remaining challengers were Giudice and Olympic gold medal gymnast Shawn East. In those closing moments, held captive underground, Giudice had to find a way to cling on to both her place and her sanity. “We had no concept of time, but at that point, I was like, ‘I made it to interrogation, I’m in this moment, let me just push through’, like, how much worse can it really get?” explains Giudice of her unbreakable spirit. “And that was kind of my mindset throughout the whole thing.”
Thanks to her willingness to throw her body into anything physical, and a mindset that made the youngest challenger one of the most formidable, the Directing Staff selected only Giudice and Shawn West as potential Special Forces operatives, making them joint winners. “Everyone was pretty much covered in mud,” recalls Giudice of her eagerness to get back to the well-earned comfort of a hotel. “Mud was matted in our hair. I like to be a very clean person, so the first thing I had to do was get in the shower. I showered for two hours! I couldn’t get out of the shower, the amount of dirt that came off my body, it was so crazy.”
While Giudice may have washed the mud away, the extreme process of Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test will stay with her forever. Having finally spread her wings in the boldest possible way, she feels ready to live life to the full. “It’s been just such a high since Special Forces, and it was the best thing I’ve ever done in my life,” she reveals. Far from rest up, however, Giudice is busier than ever with series two of her Next Gen NYC reality show returning to Bravo, and also hosting her “Casual Chaos” podcast. Giudice also has her sights set on another reality show that would seriously test her skills.
“Dancing with the Stars is my next dream,” she shares with M&F. “Because on Dancing with the Stars, you’re training 10-hour days, dancing every single day, you also get into insane shape. Alex Earle left with an 8-pack, she looked amazing!”
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