Kelly Rizzo Says Knowing Bob Saget Was ‘Rooting’ for Her on Special Forces Gave Her ‘a Little Extra Oomph’ (Exclusive)

Kelly Rizzo had a hard time deciding Special forces: the toughest test in the world while prioritizing what is best for her in the future.

In Monday’s episode, the founder of Eat Travel Rock, 44, voluntarily retired from the show. But it was not a decision she made lightly.

“I told myself from day one, you know, talking to my family and all that. Even my dad was very adamant. He says, ‘You’re not giving up. You’re not giving up,'” Rizzo tells PEOPLE exclusively. “And then we talked even as a family, unless I’m injured or my body just can’t go on, I’m not going to walk away. I’m not going to quit because of fear because something looks scary or I’m just uncomfortable.”

“It will only be if I physically can’t go on anymore and I’ll say that happened. The body was broken. It was really completely broken to the point where you see I had nothing left in me,” she continues. “I was already in really bad shape before that last challenge. I was in so much pain, and they convinced me to stay. And then, of course, it’s the hardest challenge anyone’s ever faced.”

Kelly Rizzo remembers ‘brilliant, adorable’ husband Bob Saget a year after he died: ‘I miss his sweetness’

Due to the physical toll that being on the show took on her, including “so much physical pain” that she “could barely walk,” Rizzo felt she needed to “take one for the team.”

“In the end I was just dead weight,” she explains, adding, “Even though they were upset…leaving the team ended up being the best.”

But Special forces it was as emotional as it was physical, according to Rizzo, who recalls being “just chaos” by the end of the run.

“We were sleep deprived. I was getting maybe three hours and [still had to] he does these crazy things,” she says, noting that it’s something they “don’t really show” on the show.

Kelly Rizzo was featured on the second season premiere of ‘Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test’.

Pete Dadds / FOX

“The physical part then made me break down emotionally because you’re so exhausted with no energy and no comfort that I just completely broke down,” she says. “It was like they were together physically and emotionally. And you end up with, like, a puddle on the ground. Tyler [Cameron] he had to pick me up.”

Rizzo joined Season 2 of the Fox reality series a year and a half after her husband, Bob Saget, died suddenly at the age of 65. For her, participating in the series was a way to “find my limits, which I did” and “find out how strong I really was.”

“I’ve learned that I can push through things that are just uncomfortable for me, which usually, in the past, would have made me just give up, like, ‘Oh, I can’t sleep well. I’m not in a comfortable bed. I don’t have my sound device or my eye mask. ‘ Like, ‘I’m out of here,’ you know?” she says. “But I pushed it through.”

As the going got tough, Rizzo recalls one of the instructors “kind of chirping in my ear” about how Saget was “looking down” on her and “rooting” for her.

“I remember it ended up giving me a little more focus to like it, a little more,” she says.

(L-R) Bob Saget and Kelly Rizzo attend the red carpet premiere and party for ‘MacGruber’ on December 8, 2021.

Leon Bennett/Getty Images

Although Rizzo notes that she would “come back,” she jokingly suggests Full house an alum would advise her not to go in the first place.

“Looking back now, what’s so funny is that I would say, ‘If Bob was really chirping in my ear, he’d say, ‘Get out of here. Go home, get comfortable, put on your pajamas, order room service and get massage,’ she says. “That’s what he would tell me to do. He would say, ‘What are you doing? Get out of here’.”

Now that it’s her time Special forces Come and go, the media personality is preparing to launch a new podcast that brings together her many passions.

Kelly Rizzo is ‘open’ to relationships again, but jokes that late husband Bob Saget wouldn’t want her to be ‘too happy’

elly Rizzo on the red carpet for Fox’s ‘Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test’ September 12, 2023

Kevin Winter/Getty Images

“My big thing is my podcast, Comfort Food with Kelly Rizzo, is coming out very soon. I believe we’ll launch it next month,” she says. “I just shot my first episode with Katie Couric and [I’m] shoot a bunch more in the next few weeks. I’m talking to amazing people that everyone will know, who have been through difficult times in their lives.”

“Loss of a loved one or divorce or whatever. We talk about it, we talk about life, love, laughter, loss, while eating my guests’ favorite comfort food,” he concludes. “So it’s an appropriately happy experience for them to talk about important conversations that people are sometimes a little afraid to talk about.”

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Special forces: the toughest test in the world airs Mondays at 9pm ET on Fox.

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Source: HIS Education