Tara Reid Was the Most Compelling Case on ‘Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test’ Before She Quit

By Emma Chance | TV | October 4, 2023 |

By Emma Chance | TV | October 4, 2023 |

I didn’t watch the first season of Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test. I don’t think I’d ever heard of the show before the cast announcement of the second season, airing right now, which includes Tom Sandoval. I started watching because I wanted to see Tom Sandoval suffer. But, predictably, he’s getting very little screen time and isn’t interesting at all. The most compelling reason to watch the show? Tara Reid. Or, she was.

Tara Reid starred in the American Pie movies in 1999-2001, when I was but a wee lass, so I didn’t know who she was when she appeared in her military fatigues, looking very tired. “I feel sometimes I’m like a broken bird,” she said to her platoon leaders, a spot-on description. She could barely walk in the combat boots, struggled to hoist the giant rucksack onto her back, and was often seen being dragged along by other contestants. But there was a self-awareness in Reid that made her endearing.

“I get bullied a lot and stuff. I just wanted to make myself a stronger person, and I thought this could help,” she admitted. “I want to have thicker skin and not let people bother me so much.”

You look at her crying as she says this, visibly struggling to accomplish even the most basic tasks, jonesing for a cigarette (she tried to sneak some in but got caught), and you want her to do it. I really was ready for her redemption arc. I think the whole premise of the show is pretty ridiculous, but, come on, everyone loves an underdog.

But she couldn’t do it. Ultimately, the rucksack was the not-so-proverbial straw that broke this camel’s back when she threw a fit, saying it weighed too much. She simply couldn’t be expected to carry it around on her tiny body all the time, and why does she have to carry a rucksack that weighs the same as the one a 6-foot tall man is carrying anyway? “This thing is a monster on my back,” she cried. “I don’t want to do it anymore.”

So she turned in her numbered armband, the only way contestants can leave the show unless they’re sent home for medical reasons, and was carted off right then and there. She told her castmates she loved them as she left, but they didn’t acknowledge her.

“The tabloids have said so many things about me that aren’t true. It’s very easy to get caught up being depressed and staying home and staying alone. And the challenge is about me and my demons inside of me. Can I heal a little bit more? And that’s really why I’m here,” she’d previously said in a confessional. Only she knows if she was successful.

Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test airs Mondays on Fox or the next day on Hulu. With Reid gone, I’m rooting for Jojo Siwa and Savannah Chrisley.