Jack Osbourne was the latest celebrity recruit to leave Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test season 2. During the November 13 episode, the 38-year-old was forced to medically withdraw from the show after visiting the doctor over his high heart rate. Hollywood Life spoke exclusively with Jack about having to leave the selection process prematurely.
“I was so bummed, like so frickin’ bummed,” Jack said. “I didn’t want to leave. They forgot to take my watch off of me when I went in there because we were all covered up the whole time. I didn’t say anything and I have a smartwatch that can track your heart rate and all that. For what must have been 48 hours leading up to me actually going to the doctor — not that we had much time just hanging around the bunkhouse — I was checking my heart rate, and it was just hovering between 100 and 110 beats a minute. That was just me laying there.”
He continued, “The morning that I asked to see the doctor, I had an alert saying your heart rate is unusually high. Normally, my resting heart rate, like when I sleep, goes down to like 48. This wasn’t going below 90. I just thought they’d give me something and I’d be fine. The doctor was like, we are not able to give anything so you have to leave and go to the hospital immediately.”
Jack admitted that the whole situation was “very deflating” for him. After leaving the show, doctors spent weeks “trying to figure out” why he had such an elevated heart rate. He found his answer in a friend.
“One of my best friends, he’s a retired medic from Special Forces,” Jack explained. “I spoke to him the other day and he said, ‘Hey, are you bullsh***ing me? Because you said you had to tap out. You look like you’re going strong.’ And I was like, ‘No, I got medically pulled.’ He asked me what happened, and I was like, ‘My heart rate wouldn’t go down.’ He’s like, ‘Dude, in selection, that’s just from a lack of potassium. Literally, all you would have had to do was just hammer a bunch of bananas or take some potassium supplements, and you would have been fine.’”
While he was with the doctor, the rest of the recruits faced one of their toughest challenges. They were placed in a helicopter and submerged underwater. “I’d have been fine with that,” Jack noted. “I’d have been totally fine with the fighting afterward. The whole reason I went there is because I wanted to do the Red Man fight.”
The tests that the celebrity recruits faced over the course of season 2 were grueling. However, Jack pointed out that the challenges were actually the “easiest part” of the Special Forces experience. “The challenges don’t last more than a couple of minutes,” the reality star said. “They’re scary. There’s a lot of heights. There’s a lot of like weird things you have to do, but physically, it doesn’t really kick your ass. The tough stuff is constantly having a run everywhere with a heavy ass backpack, and it just wears on you. There’s like a constant hum of anxiety, and it just does not translate to camera, which is super frustrating because the psychological component is the tough part.”
During his run on the show, Jack opened up about being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. “The sweet irony here is I had to cap because of some random heart thing and not even an MS-related issue,” Jack told Hollywood Life. “It didn’t present a problem for me. I do a lot of physical things. I wasn’t very concerned about it. It’s always kind of in the back of your mind, but it wasn’t like at the forefront. If anything, it was only getting brought up because the DS would bring it up or in conversation with the other recruits, but it wasn’t a big issue for me. I’m very lucky when it comes to right now. I’m in a really good healthy spot with it.”
Jack also revealed how his parents, Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne, reacted to him joining Special Forces season 2. Turns out, Sharon didn’t watch until the past week!
“It was funny. I was up at my mom’s house Saturday night. I asked her, ‘Have you watched any of the show?’ And she’s like, ‘No. Where do I find it?’ So I set her up on Hulu with it, and she binge-watched the whole thing,” Jack revealed. “She called me yesterday and was asking me all sorts of questions. I don’t think they realized what it was I was doing. We’re also busy all the time. It’s kind of one of those things where someone says, ‘Oh, I’m working on a show.’ You’re just like, ‘Okay, bye.’ And don’t put too much thought into it.”
The Portals to Hell star added that it was “really tough” not speaking to new wife Aree Gearhart while he was competing. “There was a bunch of sh*t going on at home. My daughter got sick. It was tough, so she was happy when I called and said I’m coming home,” Jack said. Special Forces airs Mondays at 9 p.m. on FOX.