"You can’t move on and be happy:" Special Forces: World's Toughest Test recruit Christie Pearce opens up on her toxic marriage

Special Forces: World's Toughest Test season 4 recruit and former professional soccer player Christie Pearce, who is one of the oldest recruits on the season, opened up about her toxic marriage in the latest episode released on October 30, 2025.

She was married to husband Chris Rampone, a baseball coach for 16 years, before they divorced in 2017. The couple has two daughters together, Rylie and Reece, who were born in 2005 and 2010.

On Thursday, in the latest episode of Special Forces: World's Toughest Test, the 50-year-old Olympic gold-medalist turned recruit talked to her fellow contestants, revealing some candid details about her toxic marriage and ugly divorce, expressing the emotional trauma she faced with it, admitting:

Then I retired, and I knew it wasn’t going to work. The divorce has been extremely ugly. You can’t move on and be happy. 

Christie Pearce got brutally honest on Special Forces: World's Toughest Test, season 4 

During the October 30 episode of Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test, 50-year-old Christie Pearce Rampone took a deeply personal turn. She told her fellow recruits that she stayed in her marriage to Chris Rampone a little bit longer, trying to make it work, noting:

I stayed a little bit longer than I should have trying to heal it. But it wasn’t going to get healed.

In her private session with the Directing Staff (DS), Christie said that she came out of her comfort zone, describing how joining the show pushed her far beyond anything she experienced in her nearly two-decade soccer career. She said,

I’m scared of everything on this course. It’s way harder than what I’ve ever experienced in my 19 years of playing soccer. I came alive on the soccer field. I grew up on the road because I basically had both kids while I was playing.

As the DS asked whether her husband supported her in parenting their daughters, Rylie and Reece, she reflected that she raised her daughter herself while pursuing her career, as she explains:

I was back on the field three months after pregnancy. I wanted to be a mom and have a career so the girls always just came with me

She further told that she was the breadwinner of the family, while her husband was home, pushing all the responsibilities on her, and making her exhausted. Revealing her marriage issues, calling it the toughest thing she had experienced, Christie said,

Then I was coming home and fighting. You’re in a marriage that you’re not together so I think you lose your feelings. The hardest thing is admitting that you’re in a toxic marriage.

She confessed to feeling embarrassed about not being able to leave her marriage while being a strong woman who had captained the national team for eight years. Once she retired, she knew it wasn’t going to work, and described the divorce as extremely ugly, as she notes,

I’m embarrassed of trying to make it seem like I have this happy marriage. I was captain of the national team for eight years and I was a strong woman that led this team. But yet I couldn’t leave my marriage.

Then I retired and I knew it wasn’t going to work. The divorce has been extremely ugly. You can’t move on and be happy.

Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test streams every week on Thursdays on Fox at 9:00 pm ET.

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