World's Toughest Test’ Season 4 - 𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓢𝓽𝓪𝓽𝓮 24

Jussie Smollett is making his grand return to Fox as a recruit on the upcoming fourth season of the reality competition series “Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test.”

On Aug. 6, Fox announced the 18 celebrity recruits, including Smollett, who will compete to prove they can survive intense training exercises led by strict and ruthless ex-Special Forces operatives.

Among the cast are “The Real Housewives of New Jersey” star Teresa Giudice and her daughter Gia Giudice, who has appeared on the Bravo series for years and has more recently made a name for herself on the reality show “Next Gen NYC.” There are also two couples — Eric Decker and Jessie James Decker and Shawn Johnson East and Andrew East — as well as multiple retired professional football, basketball and soccer players.

Smollett being a contestant on the series means this will be the actor’s first time appearing on Fox since his show “Empire” ended in 2020 and he was convicted of staging a hate crime two years later. In November 2024, NBC News reported that the conviction was overturned by the Illinois Supreme Court due to prosecutorial issues.

Fox revealed in a press release that Season 4 of “Special Forces” will introduce “some of the harshest, most grueling challenges from the playbook of the actual Special Forces selection process.”

To complete the tasks, the recruits trained in Morocco and had to withstand “extreme circumstances of urban warfare.” The network clarified that although the group of recruits features spouses and relatives, all the contestants will compete as individuals.

“In this experiment, there are no votes and no eliminations — just survival. These celebrities, who are so used to being in the spotlight, will quickly learn the meaning of ‘no guts, no glory’ — and no glam,” the press release reads.

The season premieres Thursday, Sept. 25 at 9 p.m. ET/PT.

So, who signed up for a competition show that tests physical, mental and emotional resilience? Get to know the cast of “Special Forces” Season 4 and find out how they became household names, below.