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Brandi Glanville’s stint on Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test was short — yet tumultuous — and Entertainment Weekly caught up with the first star eliminated from season 5 to find out what you didn’t see on TV.
During Thursday’s premiere, the former Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star, 53, was among the 15 stars to attempt a military-style training course in the Malaysian jungle. And even before her abrupt elimination, Glanville was off to a hot start with the Directing Staff when she told Billy Billingham he had “pretty eyes” — and the British soldier asked if she was flirting with him.
“He took off [the bag over my head], and he had these crazy blue eyes. I was afraid. I wasn’t flirting. But [I thought], ‘Should I be flirting?’ I didn’t know if I was going to be saying yes or no [when he asked]. Either way, I was screwed, so I just said maybe,” Glanville tells EW. “I don’t know what to say. I definitely was not trying to flirt! It was just in me.”
In a confessional on the show, Glanville opened up about her reasons for joining the intense reality series.
“I am here to prove I’m more than just — I was going to say pretty face, but that went away,” she said, referring to her facial disfigurement. ”For three years, I’ve been very sick. I had 20-year-old breast implants and it turns out I had silicone poisoning. I’m lucky to be here and if I can get through those three years, I can get through anything.”
Glanville has been in the news for her health issues since July 2023, when she spoke about perceived facial parasites causing a change in her appearance.
“Recently, I have let fear rule me,” she explained. “With my health issues, just leaving my house has been hard. Now I want to say ‘balls to the wall.’ I just want to jump back into life.”
Glanville had the opportunity to do just that as the first task on Special Forces was jumping out a helicopter backwards and landing in a body of water.
“I was in the helicopter with the dirty politician...[George Santos]. And the whole time he’s like, ‘I’ve done this a million times. You just stay like a pencil,’” she recalls of prepping for the stunt, adding that the instructor appeared to have his head tucked in his demo. “He looked at me like, ‘Tuck your head, lady.’ Well, that’s what I thought the look was. I mean, I make up things in my head all the time. Then, Oliver [Hudson] went and he tucked his head. So I’m standing there and I wanted to tuck my head. And the guy with the blister blue eyes was like, ‘Look up. Why are you looking down? Look up!’”
Glanville says she wasn’t “hundred percent prepared,” but believes she would not have even made the jump if she had longer to think about it. She used her two sons as her motivation. “All I could think about, I made this in my head, was that Mason and Jake were down there and I had to go rescue them.”
