George Santos walked away from Special Forces on good terms with everyone — except Selling Sunset‘s Bre Tiesi.
“I’m just not a fan. I’m not interested,” Santos, 38, exclusively told Us before claiming, “She’s auditioning for Real Housewives — as she should. She should go for it.”
Santos subtly elaborated on their surprising relationship — or lack thereof.
“Selling Sunset is just not my thing,” he quipped. “I just find it to be so, so trashy.”
Special Forces, which premiered in 2023, puts celebrities through harsh training based on actual military selection processes. The cast faces intense physical and mental challenges designed to push them to their limits — and in some cases brings the recruits closer together.
“Honestly I’m really good at communicating my feelings so I reached out to a few of them after I left and the ones that I was interested in building relationships with, I already have,” Santos told Us. “I am very humbled and thankful for that.”
Santos has maintained bonds with multiple people from season 5, telling Us, “I talk to them regularly. And everyone else that I didn’t — I guess maybe there wasn’t enough time or their opinions about me were just so set in stone that it didn’t matter to them.”
He continued: “Out of the 15 of us, there’s one person I genuinely don’t care for and don’t care to know. That’s great odds, right? When you have 14 people and there’s one you’re just really uninterested in, my life goes on and I wish the person well.”
Santos went through his own set of challenges trying to get his fellow recruits to see him outside of his past legal issues. (The politician was convicted of fraud and identity theft in 2025.)
“Consequences to my own actions, right? I understand that I’m going into this and my fear was nobody was going to talk to me because of that very mindset,” he told Us about watching some of the celebrities discussing him behind his back. “It sucks to watch but I’m just like, ‘Hey, it’s my reality. I need to get past that and I need to give people other things to talk about and turn that into like a footnote and do bigger things and more meaningful things in life.’”
Santos didn’t mind proving people wrong, adding, “People can talk about those things. It’s not pleasant but it’s not unexpected. So I’ve come to expect that kind of thing. I hold no animosity. I think Oliver Hudson told no lies. He was speaking his mind and I support him for that. I still thank him for yeeting me out of the water like a beached whale. So I am OK with it.”
Before Special Forces premiered in September, Santos told Us he considered Candace Cameron Bure his favorite out of the cast. He has since heard from Bure about his praise, sharing, “We talked about it. I just love her. … Another person that I’ve talked to a lot and has been overtly kind to me has been Ruby Rose and then Collin Gosselin. I can’t be more thankful for who they are as human beings and for giving a messed up old me a chance. So I’m just really humbled about it and I cherish these relationships.”
Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test season 5 airs on Fox Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET.
