Shawn Johnson East Shares How Competing with Her Husband Tested Their Limits on ‘Special Forces’

Shawn Johnson East first dazzled us when she snagged her gold medal on the balance beam in Beijing. She then followed up that win with a ballroom blitz on Dancing With the Stars. But the Olympian and mother of three has been writing new chapters ever since, and her latest adventure has nothing to do with a leotard or a mirror ball trophy.

On Real Pod, hosted by Victoria Garrick Browne, Johnson East opened up about tackling one of the most grueling challenges of her life: competing with her husband, former NFL player Andrew East, on Fox’s Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test. 

The series takes celebrities through an intense selection process inspired by real U.S. military training, and Johnson East doesn’t sugarcoat what it took to get through it. Despite the challenges, she describes the decision to sign up as a no-brainer, especially given her and Andrew’s passion for pushing their limits.

How Special Forces compares to the Olympics

For someone who has trained her entire life for world-class competition, Johnson East admits that nothing could have prepared her for the psychological grind of Special Forces. “There’s a reason why Special Forces is actually such a mind game and so difficult,” she says. “There is no schedule. There’s no off time. From the second you start, you are on the clock for two weeks straight, and you don’t know how many challenges you’re doing in a day. You don’t know what kind of challenges you’ll face. You don’t know if you’re gonna be woken up at 3 a.m. or in the middle of your shower.”

That unpredictability is what separates it from the structure of Olympic training, where every day is mapped out. For Johnson East, the lack of control became its own kind of test, one that was as demanding as any international competition.

The emotional challenge of competing with her husband

While most viewers tune in to see the mud, sweat, and chaos, Johnson East shares that one of the most challenging parts had nothing to do with the obstacles and everything to do with competing with her long snapper husband, Andrew.

“We had this really unique and kind of uncomfortable situation where we had to watch each other struggle so bad, and that was really painful,” she says. “You couldn’t compartmentalize as much because you had the love of your life right there, literally being screamed at or getting hurt or facing the biggest fear of their life.”

Despite the emotional rollercoaster, having Andrew by her side was a source of comfort when the going got tough. “Even when I would be a blubbering mess, when I was hysterically bawling my eyes out, I had my husband there to give me a hug, which is special,” Johnson East shares, underscoring the strength of their bond.

Facing fears she didn’t know she had

If you thought gymnastics was tough, Johnson East explains how Special Forces pushed her into truly unexpected territory. She recounts one challenge that involved crawling through dark, narrow tunnels under pressure. “We’re in the middle of this challenge, and all of a sudden, they’re screaming at us to climb into this hole. And I was like, you are out of your mind.” She made it through, but when she reunited with Andrew afterward, the delayed reaction hit: “I just started hyperventilating, like legit hyperventilating, panic attack, couldn’t breathe, bawling hysterically.”

That moment revealed a new vulnerability she hadn’t recognized in herself—a fear of closed spaces, otherwise known as claustrophobia. It also showed just how intense and layered the challenges really were—forcing her to confront hidden fears while the cameras rolled.

Why she signed up anyway

So why put herself through such extremes? For Johnson East, it comes back to growth. “I value and respect the DS, what we would call them, so much that I wanted them to exploit anything. I wanted to know what was hidden in the closet,” she says.

The DS—Special Forces veterans who run the course—study each competitor’s psychological profile to know how to push them. “They truly want to make you better, so when you watch the show and you see them screaming at you and stuff, they treat every single person differently,” she explains. “And they’re wanting to better you by doing that.”

Maybe that’s the lesson worth carrying home from Special Forces. Winning isn’t always about medals or titles; it’s about the journey. Sometimes it’s about facing the scary, messy, unpredictable moments—and coming out the other side stronger, with the people you love still by your side.

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