‘Special Forces’ Winner Collin Gosselin Reveals How He Almost Blew His Cover in Interrogation

Passing the Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test course was an especially special moment for Collin Gosselin, who previously had hopes of joining the Marine Corps before he was discharged during boot camp. The former reality star won Season 5 of the show alongside Candace Cameron Bure and Alexia Umansky.

After getting through several days of physical challenges, the final seven recruits were put to the test during interrogation. Gosselin was teamed up with Cameron Bure, Alycia Baumgardner, and David Charvet. They were tasked with coming up with a cover story for why they were in the Malaysian jungle in military garb, and Gosselin almost fumbled when he was questioned about it.

“We just went over a story that we were there filming in the jungle for a movie, and we remembered we all had different actor names,” Gosselin tells TV Insider. “They didn’t show it, but there’s actually a moment where they tried to trip me up because David’s actor name was Matt, like Matt Brody from Baywatch. So that’s how it was easy for me to remember.”

Gosselin told the interrogators, “I’m here with a guy named David,” but when they brought him back in a second time, “They’re like, ‘You’re here with a guy named Matt,'” he recalls. Matt Barnes, Hannah Stocking, and Cameron Bure were in the other group on the course, but Gosselin “didn’t know if we were supposed to acknowledge” them.

“So I was like, ‘Oh, his real name’s David, but his actor name is Matt,'” Gosselin explains. “So I kind of geared it that way, and then they didn’t ask more about it. So I was like, ‘OK, I guess I just sold them on that.’ I had to think on my feet, because I was like, ‘We were hiking two completely different routes, miles from each other in the jungle. I don’t know if I’m supposed to know Alexia, Matt, and Hannah. They weren’t part of my group.’ They almost got me there.”

Below, Gosselin reflects on his tension with Charvet and reveals where they stand now. Plus, how he feels about passing the course when his estranged mom, Kate Gosselin, withdrew, and more.

I want to go back to the moment in the finale when you found out that it was you, Candace, and Alexia who had passed the course, and you saw that for the first time it was you three. What was that moment like for you?

Collin Gosselin: I turned to my left and right and I just saw the mom in Candace and I saw the big sister in Alexia and I was like, “Oh, I just want to hug you guys.” That was literally my first thought. I wasn’t thinking of all the other stuff yet. I have so much love and respect for them and the entire group. We were really a family out there and that was my first thought. It was just like, wow, this is over. I don’t have to get mud dumped on me anymore. I don’t have to listen to horrible noises anymore.

Pete Dadds/ FOX

My next train of thought when we went up to hug the DS (Directing Staff) on that stage there, I was thinking about that dream and I was thinking about three and a half years ago that passion I had right out of high school of wanting to become a US Marine. And the feelings of what that meant to me came back as I went and hugged Rudy [Reyes] and all the others. And then I went to “Q” and he was like, “This is your dream. You got it back.” And I was like, “Thank you.” And then I went and hugged Foxy and Billy and they’re just so funny. They’re always cracking jokes and they made me laugh. And then after that, I was like, “OK, now I can’t wait to go take a shower.”

Who was the first person you called back home when you found out that you had passed?

Who did I call? I think it was my dad. I think I called my dad first. I was like, “I can’t wait to go take a shower, get some food.” We ate chicken every day, so I was like, “I’m not getting chicken.”

You and David seemed to butt heads a little bit when you were on the same team there in the end in the final mission. Have you gotten to talk to him since, and what was going on there?

Yeah, we did talk and it was a very nice father-son talk. And I just said to him, “David, I really need to apologize first and foremost. I need to humble myself. I’m 22 years old. You have years and years of wisdom and experience on me, and I should have trusted your leadership.” And I opened up to him, I said, “I’ve had a lot of mistrust of adults in my life because of being young and them all doing me wrong, basically.” And I said, “I’m sorry that I took that out on you. It wasn’t fair for me to gear that towards you.” And I said to him, “In the entire time we spent in the jungle, everything you did and everything you said and everything you talked about, you put your children at the forefront of it.” And you can feel when this guy talks how much he loves his children.

And when you don’t see that from your mother as a kid and you see that in a father, and that’s the kind of father that I want to be one day, that really healed me. And he’s a great guy. He’s very compassionate. And I just said to him, “I’m sorry, I was disrespectful to you.” And every day is a chance to grow and learn. Even at 22, even overcoming the things I’ve overcome, I’m still learning and I’m still very imperfect and I have a long way to go. And I do believe that until the day we die, we should still learn and still be taking lessons and never be stagnant because that’s what leads to ignorance, and learning and taking accountability and reflecting is a beautiful thing. And I try to teach myself that it’s OK to step back.

But just to give you some credit, I do think it’s fair that you were taking on a leadership role in that situation knowing you had probably more experience in something like this than anyone else…

Yeah, I appreciate that. And it was cool to take little tidbits of information from Marine bootcamp, but it turns out that even trying to take on that leadership role in the jungle, I fell short. I was wrong a couple times. And it’s OK as leaders to be wrong. It doesn’t make you a weak leader when you’re trying to be a leader and you’ve come out the wrong way. That’s OK, that happens.

Pete Dadds/Fox

And it taught me that even down the line, being a leader in the future, it’s OK to be wrong. You should rely on your team. And David told me, “The best leaders, they find the strengths in each person on their team and they build on those strengths and they highlight those things. And so we pull everybody’s strengths together and that’s how we accomplish the mission.” David taught me that. I’m going to remember that for the rest of my life.

Would you say it was especially rewarding to win knowing that your mom was out on the first day when she did the course?

Yeah. I first want to say getting medically withdrawn is not fun and a neck injury is also not fun. So I give her that compassion and I’ve hoped that she is healed from that injury. But the way I look at it is pretty cool. She was the first person out in the history of Special Forces, and as of right now, I’m the last person to have made it through Special Forces. So it’s a pretty cool full circle moment.

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I think the biggest thing is mentality. When you’ve been through it, when you’ve lived through what I’ve lived through as a kid, it builds your mind to be very strong and you learn to not give up on yourself. Because when I was a kid, I couldn’t give up on myself. I couldn’t rely on anybody else.

I can only rely on myself and I can never give up. Three years of institution, spending that alone, and years before that being basically a prisoner in my own mind, in my own home, and having to put up with something that I knew wasn’t right, which was being exploited, you only can ever rely on yourself. And so that’s where that came from is this whole time through Special Forces. I was like, “You got this, Collin.” But there was a beautiful thing that I also learned that was completely different. I learned to rely on my team and the people around me, and that was the biggest thing that woke me up here. I was like, “I’m not relying on just myself anymore.”

Maybe in my head, it’s helping me to push forward, but I learned to rely on those around me. And there were a lot of father figures, mother figures, big sisters, Maxim [Naumov], who was like a brother to me. So I had that. I learned that there are good people in this world that you can trust and that you should trust.