Kelly Rizzo voluntarily left Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test, but she has no regrets — and she thinks her late husband, Bob Saget, would be surprised she joined the show at all.
“He would’ve thought I was insane for doing it in the first place,” Rizzo, 44, exclusively told Us Weekly before her exit aired on Monday, October 16. “Probably would’ve tried to talk me out of it, but he would’ve ultimately been proud and he would’ve been concerned for my safety.”
Rizzo went on to say that she felt like Saget was “looking down” and cheering her on when she decided to leave. “He’s telling me, ‘Go home. This is crazy. What are you doing to yourself? You don’t need to do this. Go to the hotel and put on a cozy robe and take a shower and order a cheeseburger. This is insane,’” she joked to Us. “I was like, if Bob had something to say about this, he would be like, ‘Get the hell out of there.’”
Rizzo made the choice to leave Special Forces during Monday’s episode of the Fox series after battling intense pain during a boat-carrying challenge. She described it as “the most traumatic” day of her life since Saget died on January 9, 2022.
“I told myself from day one, I am not quitting. I am going forward. I will never look at something and be like, ‘That’s too scary, or I just don’t want to do that. I will only withdraw if my body just breaks down or I’m injured,’” Rizzo recalled. “And so I’m proud of myself that that’s what happened. I did not just give up.”
On the day Rizzo decided to exit the competition, she was “in so much pain” that she could barely walk. “I was truly scared, like, ‘Am I doing long-term damage to my body here?’ I’ve never felt this pain before. I’ve never felt my knees just not be able to withstand any weight,” she recalled. “And it was at a point where I’m like, ‘This is bad.’”
The show’s doctors suggested she take some over-the-counter pain medication, which helped with the aches but made her feel “a little loopy.” Ultimately, she decided she’d had enough. “It was the hardest physical challenge of the entire thing,” Rizzo said. “And every single person, even the beasts — Tyler Cameron — were like, ‘That was the hardest day of my entire life.’ It was truly the hardest thing I’d ever been through, and my body just could not take it.”
Cameron, 30, was enormously supportive of Rizzo during her last challenge. “I was a puddle of a human on the floor, and he picked me up and gave me this big hug,” Rizzo told Us. “And I just remember sobbing into his chest because I was just so emotional, and he was just being so kind. I remember just being like, ‘Tyler, you’re amazing. Thank you.’ … He didn’t want me to give up.”
Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test airs on Fox Mondays at 9 p.m. ET.
With reporting by Kat Pettibone
