The reality star told ET how quitting the series will be a good lesson for Grayson and Chloe.
Savannah Chrisley doesn't want her siblings to be afraid of failure. The 26-year-old reality star took herself out of the game on the latest episode of Special Forces: World's Toughest Test. Afterward, in a phone interview, she told ET why she hopes quitting the intense competition will be a positive lesson for her siblings, Grayson, 17, and Chloe, 10, both of whom she has custody of amid her parents, Todd and Julie Chrisley's, prison sentences.
"I've always been such a perfectionist. It's like, if it's not perfect, then you just should have never done it. [That was] kind of always the mentality that I had... I'm so tough on myself," Savannah told ET. "I was like, 'Wait, do I really want the kids to be this way? [Do I want them to feel that] if they're not perfect, then you're not doing good enough?' It really put things into perspective for me."
"I was like, 'No. This can teach them that it's OK to fail. Sometimes it's OK to not be the best at everything. Sometimes it takes all that you have to just show up for the day, and that's OK too,'" she continued. "I started to realize I need to give myself some grace. It was just time for me to go home."
Despite that, Savannah said she "absolutely loved doing" the show.
"If they did a reunion season I would definitely be back, because I want to prove to myself that I can make it to the end," she said. "I am up for any adventure, any show. This is my year of not saying no. This is my year of just saying yes to opportunities and not taking life so seriously."
At the start of Monday's episode, actor Brian Austin Green and NBA alum Robert Horry decided to walk away from the show, and Savannah told ET that she nearly did the same.
"I was ready to throw in the towel at that point, because I was closest to them, too," she said. "It was just tough."
She stayed through the first challenge, though she did fail it. She was called in for an interrogation afterward, and that pushed her to continue on with the experience.
"I was like, 'All right, let me stick with it,'" she said, before admitting that she had "already been questioning things."
Savannah's end of the road came when she learned that the next challenge involved a late-night back dive into "freezing cold" open water.
"I was like, 'All right, I'm done. I am done. No more. No, not happening,'" she said. "And I walked away."
Her decision wasn't out of fear or tiredness, but rather because she was "just checked out."
"It wasn't safe for me to do [that]. That's when most accidents happen, when you're not fully on it," she said. "I just knew at that time. I was like, 'It's time for me to go. I miss the kids. I love them so much. I'm so worried about them. It's time for me to go home.'"
Grayson and Chloe played a role in Savannah's decision to leave too.
"I got handed a 10-year-old and a 17-year-old. I didn't get to have a baby and learn as I go. I had to figure it out. But now I realized that when you hear parents say, 'Oh, I love my kids more than anything in this world. They come before me,' now I know what that feels like," she said. "Because yes, I'm their sister, but right now I am their primary caregiver."
"Their safety and emotional, physical well-being is worth more than anything in this world to me," Savannah continued. "This past year, we've experienced so much loss. I just started getting in my head thinking, 'Oh my gosh, what if something happened to me?' At that point, I was like, 'I just have to get home.'"
Regardless of the outcome, the whole Chrisley family has been enjoying Savannah on Special Forces.
"They've been loving it," she told ET of her siblings. "They thought it was hilarious to watch me puke on national television. Chloe's going to school telling all her friends. It's been a fun way to connect with each other and to make them feel like they were a part of the whole experience as well."
The same goes for her parents, who've been tuning into Savannah's adventure from prison.
"That was a big reason why I did it," she said of the series. "I was like, 'All right, I know they're gonna be able to watch it. This is a way for us to connect, and then feel like they're a part of our life.'"
As for how her family is doing amid Todd and Julie's combined 19-year prison sentence for federal tax crimes, Savannah said they're all "pushing along, taking every day just one step at a time."
"It's definitely a challenge. [With] the holidays coming up, we're sad. It's gonna be different, but we just have to realize that this is just for a period of time. It's not forever," she said. "We know that we've got God on our side, and we have this appeal that's coming up. We're trying to stay as hopeful as possible about it."
"It's tough watching Mom and Dad, and the conditions that they're in, and their treatment that is occurring, but at the end of the day, it's opened my eyes to something bigger than just us. There's over two million people incarcerated today, so you have all of these family members that are dealing with the exact same things that we're dealing with," Savannah added. "... If I can use my voice and platform to implement change, then that's what I'm gonna do, because I realized that this is something that's not spoken about enough, but yet it impacts people more than we know."
Special Forces: World's Toughest Test airs Mondays on Fox.
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