Of all the things one might expect to find along an otherwise nondescript street in southern Lake Worth Beach, a reality TV star’s residence would probably not be among them.
But that’s where Mark “Billy” Billingham (markbillybillingham.com), of the Fox network’s Wednesday night show Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test, lives when he’s not flying around the globe for work or charitable endeavors.
The British Billingham spent nearly 20 years in the Special Air Service (SAS), reaching the rank of sergeant major while specializing in disciplines like paratrooping, counterterrorism, sniper instruction, combat survival, mountaineering, evasive driving, and jungle warfare. On the show, his fellow directing staff leaders include veteran British Special Boat Service operator Jason Fox, U.S. Recon Marine Rudy Reyes, and U.S. Navy SEAL Remi Adeleke.
Those four elite fighting force members put recruits like former NBA center Dwight Howard, NFL running back Danny Amendola, Olympic soccer player Carli Lloyd, MLB Hall of Fame catcher Mike Piazza, Olympic freestyle skier Gus Kenworthy, and TV personalities Anthony Scaramucci, Kenya Moore and Hannah Brown through some of the same grueling physical and mental exercises they once went through to reach such lofty military rankings.
Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test airs at 9 p.m. EST Wednesdays on Fox through March 1. Billingham says the ratings and viewer demographics are strong and diverse, hinting at possible future seasons.
Far more real than most so-called reality series, this is the Americanized version of SAS: Who Dares Wins, the British predecessor that features similar directing staff. Filmed in locales including Jordan, Vietnam, Chile, Ecuador, Morocco, the UK, and Scotland, Billingham says the episodes have proven surprisingly therapeutic for viewers.
“I’ve loved it,” he says. “We’ve been running the show in the U.K. for six-and-a-half to seven years now, and this is essentially the same, but with a new title that suits the American market. We film each episode over a 24-hour period, but have nothing to do with what gets edited down to one hour. And what we didn’t realize, at the start, was the feedback we’d get on how helpful it would become to people. They’re watching contestants get pushed to their limits, and responding that it’s therapeutic, and helping them get out of some dark places in their lives.”
It’s safe to say that none of the 16 contestants on the Jan. 4 American debut felt like they were undergoing therapy. In that two-hour series introduction, they were required to attempt a blind backward dive into the ocean off of a helicopter; scale a ravine hundreds of feet in the air, while tethered, with their feet and hands on separate wires, and attack a padded staff member with their hands and feet.
“If any of you should die, it’s nature’s way of saying you failed,” Billingham shouts at one point, providing both a reality check and comic relief, intended or not. Throughout the series, Fox, Reyes and Adeleke provide mostly strong, silent leadership. But it’s Billingham, the eldest, most decorated and most awarded of the four, who often injects humor in playing the psychological bad cop to expose the contestants’ fears and vulnerabilities.
“Some of the challenge involves having orders barked at you,” Billingham says. “I’ve known Jason for a long time. Rudy joined the British version of the series about two seasons ago, and Remi joined near the end of its latest season. We live and camp on the same grounds as the contestants, and the camaraderie is second to none. We all have a bond through our training. I was fighting side by side with American forces in the global war on terrorism after 9/11.”
Beyond the contestants’ dangerous tasks, they constantly carry 30-pound rucksacks on their backs and endure military-style sleeping quarters, unisex bathing facilities and toiletries, and food that is decidedly not what they’re accustomed to as athletes and celebrities. Medical and psychological teams are on hand for those who can’t handle the truth.
“They’re going through 18-hour days,” Billingham says, “with no breaks and no re-takes on the course, as we call it. It’s brutal, and more mental than physical. It involves endurance, cardiovascular challenges, and sleep and food deprivation. And being British, I didn’t really know much about them beforehand, which is good, because I could take them at face value that way. We’re not necessarily looking for the strongest, the fastest, or the toughest. With each contestant, what we’re looking for is you — who you really are, and what your hundred percent truly is.”
In the first episode alone, Kate Gosselin (of the TV show John & Kate Plus 8) was forced to exit because of a neck injury sustained when she awkwardly landed the backward dive, fellow TV personality Dr. Drew Pinsky exited after suffering dehydration, and R&B singer Montell Jordan did likewise after breaking a thumb during the fight simulation. Celebrity chef Tyler Florence, who’d unwisely likened his work to that of Special Forces during one of the show’s studio interviews, became the first to quit voluntarily after watching fellow contestants try to scale the ravine.
Few succeeded in that discipline, including Howard, who fell after being forced to go first. The imposing staff leaders had recently instructed the contestants to line up, self-ranked as strongest to weakest. Howard had placed himself at number one, unaware that his fear of heights would soon be tested. As known for his attitude on the basketball court as his ample talents, he would also be tested thereafter while disagreeing with Billingham when the staff leader chastised him.
“Don’t shake your head at me or I’ll tear it off and beat you with it,” Billingham advised. A head taller than the Brit at nearly 7 feet, Howard nonetheless wisely backed down, and a subsequent private talking-to with both Adeleke and Billingham injected some humility.
Within the next two airings, the contestants had been whittled down by additional departures. Entertainers Jamie Lynn Spears, Beverley Mitchell and the Spice Girls’ Melanie Brown (Mel B), plus gymnast Nastia Liukin, all left voluntarily after exercises including escaping a vehicle submerged in water, rappelling down a cliff by rope (or being the rope buddy brake person in charge of keeping them from hitting the ground), pushing a truck in teams, and carrying heavy items up steep hills.
Halfway through the season in late January, 16 initial recruits had been cut to eight. All appeared to last through episode 5, in which they had to execute two of Billingham’s specialties — rappelling down the side of a tall tower on a wire after a hasty climb up its stairs following Adeleke, and driving through a series of obstacles, explosions, and armed gunmen while the animated Brit instructed them from the passenger’s seat. Billingham doesn’t divulge whether anyone made it through the 10 episodes that finished filming last summer, but says those eight will be tested even harder as the series continues.
“It’s going to get tougher, and the pressure will increase,” he says. “Both mentally and physically. People definitely have some things to see.”
Sitting on the back patio of his Lake Worth Beach home, with his wife Julie Colombino-Billingham and their English bulldog Alfie, Billingham cuts a very different figure from his onscreen personality. His understated, soft-spoken demeanor is in sharp contrast to the full-throated voice viewers hear. Even his face and eyes (many of the show’s contestants refer to him under their breath as “Blue Eyes”) are different in person, softening the chiseled TV visage of what looks like a veteran British boxer.
But the truth is that Billingham’s multi-faceted career approximates that of a modern-day Renaissance Man, including being a celebrity bodyguard (Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Tom Cruise, Sir Michael Caine, Russell Crowe), motivational speaker, author, film actor, and humanitarian.
Billingham was Jolie’s head of security when the actress shot the 2008 film Changeling, allowing him to work with legendary director Clint Eastwood. A friendship with actor Sean Penn led to Billingham’s appearance in his 2015 action flick The Gunman. Both men have done extensive humanitarian work in Haiti, the impoverished island nation that’s suffered through multiple earthquakes and hurricanes since 2010. Colombino-Billingham, a fashion designer and disaster relief responder, met her future husband there in a tale too good for a romance novel plot.
“We both arrived in Haiti about 10 days after the 2010 earthquake, and got together there,” Billingham says. “Julie formed a charity that I support called Rebuild Globally (rebuildglobally.org). It puts kids through school for job training, then provides the final solution toward ending poverty, which is giving them work. And I’d been around the globe, and seen the effects of war, conflict, and natural disasters. So I helped design a hospital, and Sean ended up taking my donation and building a school with it.”
“Our charity and our business coexist,” says Colombino-Billingham. “People graduate school in our job training program, but there may be no jobs to be had if our business isn’t successful, since Haiti has an 80 percent unemployment rate. Our new collection of travel bags and accessories, made in our factory in Haiti, is available through our company Deux Mains [deuxmains.com].”
Deux Mains (“two hands”) also produces handbags, sandals, jewelry, and accessories like wallets, tote bags, and passport covers.
The 57-year-old Billingham’s motivational speaking career echoes his coming-of-age 2019 autobiography The Hard Way. Subsequent fictional books Call to Kill (2020) and Survive to Fight (2021) featuring his alter-ego Matt Mason, may give more vivid outlines of the classified hostage rescues and strategic operations he encountered in locales like Iraq, Afghanistan, South America, and Africa.
It’s those kind of backgrounds that make Billingham, Fox, Reyes, and Adeleke perhaps more interesting characters than the better-known contestants they lead. Maybe even the stars of the series.
“Oh, we’re not the stars, we’re the staff,” Billingham says with a smile.
Special Forces soldier, bodyguard, speaker, actor, author and amiable guy next-door combined, Billingham is a good man to have nearby — both in times of war — and peace.