Ruby Rose built a large part of her screen career around what her body could do. On the Season 5 premiere of Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test, the actor was confronted almost immediately with how much a serious injury from Batwoman had changed what she could still ask of it.
The first challenge required the celebrity recruits to fall backward from a hovering helicopter into open water. Rose took a different route, entering feet first because of her neck history. When Candace Cameron Bure asked why, Rose said she had broken her neck “like, twice already” and had two replacement discs, according to EW.
Rose connected those limitations to the 2019 stunt injury she suffered while working on Batwoman. At the time, she revealed that two herniated discs had come close to damaging her spinal cord and required emergency neck surgery. The L.A. Times reported on the surgery when Rose publicly shared footage of the procedure.
Seven years later, she is still measuring herself against the action performer she remembers being before that injury. “There was no bouncing back,” Rose said in a confessional on the Fox series. “There was no part of me left. It was just the shell. Four years of my life gone.”
The Old Injury Changed Her First ‘Special Forces’ Task
Season 5 takes place in the Malaysian jungle, where 15 celebrity recruits face military-style exercises modeled on Special Forces selection. Fox says the season includes challenges involving underground bunkers, suspended supply retrievals, chemical exposure and other exercises designed to test recruits physically and mentally.
Before the premiere, she told Us Weekly that there were moments she considered quitting because she worried an injury on the course could undo some of the progress she had made.
Later in the premiere, Rose struggled to lift a heavy bag over her head after a nighttime obstacle course. Because the entire group had to keep holding their bags until she finished, the difficulty quickly became psychological as well as physical.
She admitted that slowing down the other recruits could undermine her confidence. One of the Directing Staff members pushed her by reminding her that he had watched her play a superhero. Rose’s answer to the camera was much quieter. “Eventually it’s like, I’m not really that action star, am I?” she said. “I’m just Ruby.”
Rose Says the Injury Took More Than Her Physical Strength
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The medical emergency itself was public long before Special Forces. In September 2019, Rose posted footage from her neck surgery and said she had herniated two discs while performing stunts.
She wrote that doctors had warned she risked paralysis without an operation and that she was living with chronic pain while also losing feeling in her arms. The TheWrap and the L.A. Times both reported those comments at the time.
Rose later explained on The Tonight Show that she initially believed she had injured a rib after performing one stunt for hours and kept working through the pain. An MRI later revealed how serious the neck injury was. TheWrap reported that Rose described the experience as “really, really terrifying.”
Her ‘Batwoman’ Exit Still Has a Disputed History
Rose left Batwoman after its first season in 2020. The following year, she publicly accused the production and Warner Bros. Television of unsafe working conditions and said she had been pressured to return shortly after surgery.
Warner Bros. Television strongly disputed her account. In a statement reported by the L.A. Times, the studio called Rose’s version “revisionist history” and said it had decided not to exercise her Season 2 option after multiple complaints about workplace behavior that had been reviewed internally.
TV Insider also revisited the injury ahead of Special Forces, noting Rose’s account of the two herniated discs and the risk to her spinal cord.
Another Controversy Followed Rose Into the Jungle
The premiere also briefly acknowledged a much more recent story surrounding Rose. After she left a group conversation, Oliver Hudson told other recruits that she had something happening in the news and referenced Katy Perry.
In April, Rose publicly accused Perry of sexually assaulting her at a Melbourne nightclub in 2010. Perry has denied the allegation. Her representative called Rose’s claims “categorically false.”
ABC News in Australia independently confirmed with Victoria Police that detectives were investigating a report of a historical sexual assault alleged to have occurred at a licensed venue in Melbourne’s central business district.
Rose subsequently said police had asked her not to continue discussing the matter publicly while the investigation was active. There has been no finding establishing Rose’s allegation as fact.