Kayla Nicole is ready to show the world her “raw, vulnerable” side.
The sports reporter and influencer — who famously dated Travis Kelce prior to his romance with Taylor Swift — is one of the celebrity recruits featured on the upcoming third season of “Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test.”
While exclusively speaking to Page Six at a press day for the hit Fox series, Nicole explained how dealing with the backlash from her breakup and critics online mentally prepared her for such a grueling process.
“God, I think that put things in full perspective, that social media is literally just that. Social media, words on the internet and experiences like this put life into perspective,” she told us on the red carpet in Los Angeles.
“Like, there’s people in the real world that are doing this on a daily basis to save lives. So the little tweets and the headlines could mean nothing to me when you’re put in an environment like this.”
Nicole and Kelce dated on and off for five years before officially calling it quits in May 2022. The Kansas City Chiefs tight end moved on with Swift in July 2023 and the two are still going strong.
Amid her ex’s new romance, Nicole has spoken out about her former relationship with Kelce in various interviews, podcasts and on social media. She also briefly spoke about the athlete in a sneak peek teaser clip for “Special Forces” that dropped last month.
“Going through a public breakup, it’s been overwhelming,” Nicole admitted in a voiceover, later name-dropping the NFL star when her fellow recruits asked her to identify her famous ex.
Although she’s no longer romantically linked with the Super Bowl champion, Nicole has continued to receive plenty of criticism and negative comments from fans of Kelce and his pop superstar girlfriend.
The fitness guru told Page Six that despite the ongoing backlash from trolls online, she’s not afraid of viewers witnessing some of her weaker moments on the show as she and her fellow recruits partake in challenges based on the actual Special Forces selection process. In fact, she’s “excited,” she shared.
“I would say I’m the opposite of being afraid of what people are going to see. I’m actually excited for people to see us stripped down, raw, vulnerable,” the content creator explained. “I think people in general, the general public, need to be reminded that we’re all humans, right? We all have very real emotions. And I’m excited about that element [of] allowing us to be humans.”
Nicole has had “Special Forces” on her bucket list for awhile. She told Page Six that she watched previous seasons and was especially “inspired” by JoJo Siwa, who competed last year alongside celebrities like Tyler Cameron, Nick Viall and Tom Sandoval.
“I actually watched the first season with my sisters. I turned it off and I looked at them and I’m like, ‘So what do you guys think? Like, should I do this?’” she recalled. “ They’re like, ‘First of all, this is insanity. But also, you’re the most insane person that I know. And if anybody could do this, you could do it.’ They believed in me from the jump, which was really nice, but they thought that it was insane.”
Nicole also personally felt like she wanted some type of change or challenge in her life at the time.
“Sometimes you get into a little bit of like a cruise control mode in life and you need to shake things up. This was definitely that,” she told Page Six, noting that she’s hoping to do more TV projects in the future. “And I think, too, I wanted to just prove to myself that when I’m tested, I can push myself to the furthest limit. And I’m really, really a lot stronger than I even knew that I was.”
Nicole was joined in the interview by fellow recruit Brody Jenner, who told us he said “yes” to the show due to “the fear of missing out.”
“You get the opportunity and you’re like, ‘If I say no to this, I’ll probably regret this for the rest of my life.’ I think [it’s] that thought in the back of your head, like, ‘I don’t want to do this, but I should do this,’” the “Hills” alum explained.
“I have a lot of respect for the men and women of our armed forces. I was like, ‘They do this s–t all the time. I gotta show up and I gotta do this.’”
Although his mother, Linda Thompson, was initially against him doing the show — telling him, “no, honey, don’t do this!” — Brody told us the rest of his family was fully supportive of the relentless gig.
“My brother was very excited. My fiancée [Tia Blanco] really wanted me to [do it], my dad [Caitlyn Jenner],” he shared. “Everybody that was in my life pretty much wanted me to do it. They’re like, ‘You gotta do this. It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity.’”
The Season 3 premiere of “Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test” — which also features Denise Richards, Carey Hart, Cam Newton, Christy Carlson Romano and more — airs Jan. 8 on Fox.
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