These are busy times for Kelly Rizzo, who’s not only competing on Season 2 of Fox’s “Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test,” but just moved into a new home in LA — 20 months after the shocking death of her husband, 65-year-old comedian Bob Saget.
“After Bob passed away … I moved and rented a beautiful home in Hollywood for 18 months and then that lease was up so I bought my first home,” Rizzo, 44, told The Post. “I just wish I had paid more attention to when Bob would tell me all these things [about home ownership] like, ‘Hey, pay attention to this, here’s how the plumbing works.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, yeah I’ll never need to know that.'”
She added: “And I also wish I paid more attention to all the times Bob said that owning a home is a pain in the butt.”
Kelly Rizzo and Bob Saget in a photo Rizzo posted on her Instagram in tribute to her late husband.Instagram/eattravelrock Rizzo, who also hosts “Eat Travel Rock” (nearing its 100th episode), said she thinks of Saget “all the time, every day” and that he “has such a huge presence” in her new home.
“He’s everywhere,” she said. “Whether it’s the last poster from the very last show he did the night before he passed or photos of him or little trinkets here and there …and keeping his girls [Aubrey, Lara, Jennifer] close to me and talking to them and his friends all the time.”
“I feel like he’s a part of my life in one way or another every single day,” she said. “[His death] is still a very surreal thing and sometimes when it hits me I’m like, ‘Wait. What happened?’ It still doesn’t make sense.”
“The outpouring of love around Bob when everything happened … most people to this day still say they’ve never seen anything like that, so it’s a testament to who he was and the impact he made on this world,” she said.
Kelly Rizzo at the “Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test” premiere in LA Sept. 12.Getty Images “It never makes me sad when people bring up Bob because it makes me happy that he’s still top-of-mind and people are still talking about him and missing him and caring about him,” she shared.
“He will never be forgotten.”
Rizzo won’t soon forget competing on “Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test,” premiering Sept. 25 at 9 p.m. She’s joined by 13 others including Jack Osbourne, JoJo Siwa, Tom Sandoval, Bode Miller, Nick Viall, Tara Reid and Black Chyna.
“I had maybe 10 days or so notice before I left for New Zealand (where the season was filmed),” she said, which didn’t leave much time to train for the rigorous reality show.
“I watched Season 1 so I knew there was a lot of running long distances through interesting terrain with really heavy backpacks, so I filled up a backpack with almost 30 pints of water bottles and would run up this hill in my neighborhood,” she said. “I would just run full speed up a pretty steep hill until I was about to throw up and pass out.
“When we got to New Zealand they gave us our combat boots, so I had about week or so to train beforehand; I would run on a treadmill wearing the combat boots.”
Kelly Rizzo in New Zealand on the set of “Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test.”Pete Dadds Rizzo said the cast was intentionally kept apart until “the very first moment of filming”; even visits to the gym were regulated so that only one person at a time was there.
Rizzo said she ending up bonding with several of her “Special Forces” colleagues.
“Jack [Osbourne] was just so helpful and great and also our cots faced each other, so every morning we were the first people that each other saw,” she said. “Bode Miller was fantastic; he and Jack have been adventuring their whole lives and are so knowledgeable about this world.
“Savannah Chrisley and JoJo were just so cool; JoJo is so wise beyond her years and so mature for her age. She was kind of like the den mother of the group, always making sure we were on time and making sure our uniforms and kits all looked the same.
“This was not a pampered situation,” Rizzo said. “You truly feel like you are on a military base and are part of that world. You eat when they tell you to eat — the food’s not great — and if you miss a meal you go hungry; there’s not a vending machine or snack kitchen. There are no toiletries; you don’t get a brush or a comb or hair conditioner and you don’t even get normal soap — it’s dish soap if you want to shower.
“I just combed my hair with a metal fork one day after going in an icy pond.”
And, being in such close quarters with 13 strangers, you learn a thing or two, she said.
“For me, what I was scared of was … how am I going to fall asleep in a room full of 13 other people when I don’t have my eye mask or sound machine or earplugs and people are just going to be snoring,” she said. “I think I got the worst sleep out of everyone there — I averaged about three hours a night — while JoJo was able to just zonk out and go right to sleep.
“When you’re 44 and your back is hurting and you’re like, ‘Oh god, Tara Reid and Tom Sandoval are snoring and I can’t go to sleep’ it’s a different story.”
