Before Jojo Siwa decided to join Season 2 of Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test on Fox, the pop star considered herself a “very sheltered” celebrity whose small-screen career involved dancing, not jumping out of helicopters or rappelling down mountains.
“I made a joke that I was wrapped in bubble my whole life. That really is so true,” she said during a panel for the series at Deadline’s Contenders Television: Documentary + Unscripted about the Fox show, which assembles celebrities from all genres to take on demanding training exercises led by an elite team of ex-Special Forces operatives.
“I feel like it really gave no choice but to take that bubble wrap and just chuck it down the drain,” she added. “And my mom, I feel like, is holding onto that bubble wrap now. ‘What do I do with this?’ You know what I mean? But yeah, definitely. It was not in my lane before, but now it’s in my lane for sure. I mean post-Forces, I’m a different human being. We are all different human beings in one way or another from it.”
One aspect of Special Forces that Siwa really appreciated was how no one actually is pitted another in some random race to win a grand prize.
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“Everyone that shows up can finish. It’s not only one person can win or only two or three people can win. It’s as many that can hold on,” explained Siwa, who was joined on the panel by fellow “recruits” Tyler Cameron and Nick Viall of the Bachelor/Bachelorette franchise and Olympic gold medal speed skater Erin Jackson. “How many can walk away victorious in this situation? But I think what I realized is that these humans that you look at as public figures, as celebrities, as Olympians, these people are now my family and some of the closest people to me. And when we were there, everything gets stripped away. Celebrity goes away. You are just stripped to the core, and so you really see everybody’s true colors. These three that are in this room right now are the three that had my back the whole time, and I would not have made it as far as I did without them. They are the true winners of this show.”
“The only person you were competing with against was yourself,” added Viall. “This wasn’t a competition amongst peers. So we really relied on each other to get through this whole challenge. Their whole mantra was, ‘Soldiers don’t get ready, they stay ready.’ And I think, more than anything, that affected us on the mental side in terms of us always having to be prepared for at any moment for a mission. When we were driving in Jeeps and when we were on the challenges, we all very much bonded because we really only had each other.”
Check back Monday for the panel video.
The post JoJo Siwa Says “We’re All Different Human Beings In One Way Or Another” After ‘Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test’ Experience – Contenders TV: Doc + Unscripted appeared first on Deadline.