‘Special Forces’ Winners Dish on Hardest Part of the Course & More

Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test crowned its winners during the Thursday, November 20, finale. Heading into the final day of the course, five recruits remained: Kody Brown, Andrew East, Shawn Johnson, Brianna LaPaglia, and Gia Giudice.

The final day featured the mentally draining interrogation, where recruits were pushed to the brink as interrogators attempted to get them to reveal that they were part of the military. The Directing Staff (DS) disqualified East after he failed to stand up to the interrogators when they were holding his wife, Johnson, and Giudice underwater as an interrogation tactic.

“I would’ve said something to stop the duress of the smaller, weaker people,” Rudy Reyes said. The anonymous “umpire” said East’s performance in the interrogation was “abysmal” because he was not “humanizing” and didn’t give a credible story for why he was in Morocco.

Brown was the next to go. Interrogators punished Johnson, Giudice, and LaPaglia by making them hold heavy sandbags, hoping it would make Brown cave and reveal their military secret. “They’re struggling and he’s still not trying to do anything about it,” the DS pointed out. “He knows what he needs to do, but he’s not willing to do it.” They disqualified him.

Finally, LaPaglia left the course at the last minute. She hit her breaking point and revealed her secret mission to the interrogators before she was about to be shut inside a claustrophobic box.

Johnson and Giudice made it to the end, and the DS let them know that they had completed the course and won the show.

Pete Dadds/ FOX

Below (and in the video above), the winners open up about their journeys, including how it felt to finish the competition without their loved ones by their sides (Johnson and Giudice’s husband and mother, respectively, were also part of the Season 4 cast).

What was going through your minds when you were waiting for the DS to tell you if you passed?

Gia Giudice: Confusion. Like… “Are we done? Or did we just win?” I think I slightly smirked at Shawn for a minute, and then we were confused, but then they started talking to us and saying a lot of confusing things. Then they finally told us we won.

Shawn Johnson: We hugged each other for, like, two minutes. It was like, “OK, now can we shower?” It took a little bit.

Was the physical or mental part of the course more difficult for you?

Johnson: The mental part was 100% harder for me. I’m very used to the physical side of things and pushing through discomfort, but I’ve never gone through anything that mental before. It’s just confusing and manipulating. It was a lot. But I’m really proud we finished it.

Giudice: I agree. And as much as you guys saw that it was mainly physical … those physical challenges still required so much mental strength. Because they were so difficult, but it was your mind telling you to finish to keep pushing and not give up. Even during some of those challenges where we were facing claustrophobia and crazy things like that, that’s all a mind game. So, yes, it came down to the interrogation where it was mainly all mental, but I felt like the whole course was 90% mental.

Shawn, did you and Andrew discuss what you would do if one of you left before the other?

Johnson: Andrew and I had many conversations before we ever started the show on what would happen if, for some reason, I got hurt or I tapped out, or he did as well. And we always had intentions, no matter what, of staying. We were each other’s biggest supporters and cheerleaders and we had to finish for the team. We planned on it being both of us, but if it wasn’t both of us, it had to be one of us.

What was going through your head when you realized he was gone on the last day? 

Johnson: I think when I walked out and they made this whole scene of, “Do you notice anybody’s missing?”, in my head, I know my husband so well, and he was never going to quit or VW, so I thought they were just playing a game. In my head, there was no chance he was gone. Like, OK, guys, he’s in the room just getting tortured somewhere else. To learn the story of them actually pulling him out was devastating, only because I knew he wanted to finish so badly.

Why do you think the DS had such a tough time getting people to voluntarily withdraw this season?

Giudice: We were the toughest cast, out of all the seasons. We even surprised each other. Yes, some of us knew each other, some of us didn’t, but just seeing how badass we all were, it was awesome.

Johnson: Other seasons I had seen, the cast had let differences and different styles drive wedges in between cast members. We had so many different cast members that were different, had different lifestyles and different opinions and things, but we all were such a unified team, we weren’t letting each other quit. We were truly a family pushing to get all of us to the end. We talked about that on day one.

Was there actually tension between Kody Brown and the rest of the cast?

Giudice: Kody even pushed us. I know they made it seem that way, but he helped my mom with breathing exercises for the airplane challenge.

Johnson: He helped me get through the tunnels. He was literally dragging me out of the tunnels because I was having a panic attack.

Giudice: He was helping lift up my backpack when we were going up the hills. So there were times where he was really amazing. Everyone has their faults. Nobody’s perfect.

Gia, you struggled at first and then came into your own. What was the turning point for you? 

Giudice: I think when my mom left … I didn’t realize that the energy of you worrying about somebody while doing something so intense, you don’t realize how much energy you’re actually exerting. When she had left, I think it was kind of my time to shine. But also, as each day went on, I personally got stronger and stronger and stronger. I think I started off a little weak and then it was like I was in training, I kept getting better and better. That was really rewarding, too. So it was a combination of not wanting to let myself or my family down and making myself proud, but also making [the DS] proud.

Pete Dadds/FOX

Did you and your mom ever have a conversation about what you’d do if one of you left first? 

Giudice: Obviously, that went through my head because it just sucked in the moment. I did not know that she was going to leave right then and there. Everyone was shocked. Everyone’s jaws were on the ground. But we had conversations, like nights leading up to going into selection and just in the barracks and stuff. She always said, “When I leave,” because deep down she knew that I was going to make it further than her. But she was like, “When I leave, do you want me to wait for you here in Morocco, or do you want me to go home?” And we had that conversation right before the milling, and I was like, “No, are you crazy, go home.”

What was your mom’s reaction when you told her you won? 

Giudice: She was so happy. It was crazy. We got our phones shortly after me and Shawn won. I got into the car, I FaceTimed her. and I was like, “I just won Special Forces,” and she was like, “I knew it, I’m so excited.” She was so happy and when I got home, she had this big banner that said Special Forces winner with balloons. She was so proud of me, but just as a mom, she was so relieved that I was home. She saw what we were doing, and she couldn’t sleep. She was a wreck until I got home.

Who was your biggest supporter in the cast after she left?

Giudice: Girls, it was me, Shawn, Bri, and Jessie [James Decker]. We were like a little team. And then all the guys were amazing. They were such gentlemen, but I would say who I connected with the most was Andrew and Randall [Cobb]. And Ravi [Patel], but he tapped out [earlier]. When it got really intense, it was Andrew and Randall, and it was funny because I was paired with them when we were getting captured, so I relied on them so much. When Randall tapped out before interrogation, my heart sank into my stomach. The whole course I kind of connected with him right off the bat, and he was kind of helping me throughout the course. He motivated me a lot, too, because he just said things that pushed me. Everyone was really amazing.

Shawn, did having an athlete’s mentality from your years of gymnastics help you on this show? 

Johnson: Absolutely. It has been such a long time since I competed, and so I really didn’t know if I was capable of tapping back into that. It was shocking to me that I was still able to. But yes, everything I learned in gymnastics and my career kind of transferred over.

Giudice: Her discipline is inspiring to watch. No matter what, she pushed. She did it. It was really inspiring.