After being on the wrong end of a very public cheating scandal earlier this year, reality star Tom Sandoval went on Fox’s Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test to punish himself. And in Monday’s episode, he got what he wanted.
During the episode called “Character,” Sandoval expressed shock over the backlash he’s received this year, and was later bloodied during a challenge and ended up crying on the toilet and, later, crying during a meeting with the staff. But, it was someone else who ended up bowing out of the show.
So here’s a breakdown of the lows and not-quite-as-lows on this week’s Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test.
Sandoval talking Scandoval
In a scene halfway through the episode, Sandoval is shown discussing what he described as a “pretty juicy f*****g scandal” that came with his face plastered all over social media every day. He’s of course referring to cheating on his girlfriend and Vanderpump Rules co-star, Ariana Madix, with another Vanderpump cast member, Rachel Leviss.
“I had an affair and it just blew up,” Sandoval said. “People were messaging me paragraphs of just vicious, like, so visceral, like, hatred.”
When asked by Olympic speed skater Erin Jackson why people made such a big deal of it, Sandoval seemed completely befuddled.
“I honestly don’t know,” he said. “I’m a f******g stupid reality star, like, come on, man.”
Speaking in a confessional interview, Sandoval said that before the cheating scandal, people thought he was “so cool” but now, “people think I’m a complete narcissist, creeper vibes.”
The reality star also added that he didn’t come on Special Forces to run away, saying, “I want to punish myself. I think I deserve it.”
Lucky for him that punishment was coming.
Sandoval getting bloodied
During something called the milling challenge, which is basically just sparring with a partner until the directing staff says to stop, Sandoval was first paired up with Bachelor star Nick Viall, with whom a little beef has been rumored.
Sandoval did well against Viall and was declared the winner, earning a face-off against Jack Osbourne. And then the son of Ozzy tried to literally take the face off of Sandoval, leaving him with a bloody nose.
Afterward, Sandoval was a bit in shock and found himself sitting on the toilet while “laughing and crying at the same time,” trying to process what he had been through.
“I felt so defeated out there,” he said to fellow recruit Bode Miller.
Sandoval’s questioning
Not long after his beatdown by Osbourne, Sandoval was called in to meet with the directing staff where he told them that he’s had a “hell of a past three months” because he had an affair with another woman on his TV show.
“It was just the perfect storm. My publicists had never seen anything like it. A reality star having an affair on CNN?” he told them, becoming emotional. “It’s so stupid. It became this Team Ariana thing. They sold $200,000 worth of merch in, like, two weeks. Seeing people I’ve been friends with for well over a decade just turn on me. It was just so exhausting.”
Of course talking to two all-around tough guys in Mark “Billy” Billingham and Jason Fox — whose roles on the show are to be as hard on the recruits as possible — was not going to lead to much empathy for Sandoval. Instead they called him “pathetic,” with Billingham saying, “you are not a victim. You created this,” and Fox adding, “the first thing you should be doing is owning it.”
Who went home?
Early in the show the remaining eight recruits were broken into two teams to compete in a boat-carrying challenge. But due to excruciating knee and back pain it was Kelly Rizzo — media personality and the widow of Bob Saget — who had to bow out of the competition. She told The Wrap that her late husband would have “supported” her decision.
Rizzo’s exit brings the official count of remaining recruits to seven after starting with 14. And next week’s episode promises more scary situations and definitely more pain.
Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test airs Mondays at 9 p.m. on Fox.
