In a world where survival television often focuses on spectacle, Mandy Horvath continues to redefine what endurance, resilience, and purpose can look like. A bilateral amputee, mountaineer, public speaker, and recent participant on the television series Naked and Afraid, Horvath has built a reputation not simply through physical feats, but through the deeply personal meaning behind them. From crawling to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro to sharing her story of survival after a traumatic incident that changed the course of her life, Horvath approaches every challenge with a mixture of grit, vulnerability, and determination that resonates far beyond the climbing community.
During this conversation, Horvath spoke just one day after becoming the first known woman to crawl the stairwell of Seattle’s iconic Space Needle. While the climb itself was physically punishing, leaving her exhausted and sore, the motivation behind it carried far more emotional weight than simply setting another record. Horvath completed the climb in memory of her friend Sean Foley, the former executive producer of Naked and Afraid, who passed away from brain cancer. The climb also served as a fundraiser and awareness effort supporting the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center and the American Brain Tumor Association. Coinciding with her appearance at the Seattle International Film Festival, where the documentary The Ascent was screening, the moment became both a personal tribute and another chapter in Horvath’s ongoing mission to use adventure, storytelling, and visibility to support causes larger than herself.
In an interview with ABILITY Magazine’s Chet Cooper, Horvath reflects on her experience surviving 21 days in the Belizean jungle on Naked and Afraid, her complicated relationship with prosthetics, her growing work in film and writing, and the life-changing events that ultimately pushed her toward mountaineering. Throughout it all, she speaks candidly about pain, perseverance, and finding purpose through impossible situations—whether crawling up mountains, facing cameras in vulnerable moments, or continuing to push herself toward the next challenge waiting on the horizon.
Chet Cooper: You just attempted a record climb on May 8th 2026. Can you talk about that?
Mandy Horvath: I am currently in Seattle, Washington, and yesterday I became the first woman known to crawl the stairwell of the iconic Space Needle here.
Cooper: How do you feel right now?
Horvath: I’m tired. Yeah, I’m tired. I was feeling it yesterday. My arms feel like noodles this morning.
Cooper: Did you do certain exercises to prepare for lifting yourself so many times?
Horvath: No, I did not prep for this climb in a traditional way that I usually do. Usually for climbing I get to about 70 pounds. However, I’m training for a potential opportunity on Naked and Afraid, so I need to be at a higher weight to prepare for starvation.
Cooper: Tell me about the first time you were on Naked and Afraid.
Horvath: Oh yeah, that experience was crazy. 3 years in the making. Sean Foley, the executive producer, got me on the show, and they put me in the Belizean jungle with Johnny Yates, who is an Army veteran. I survived 21 days Naked and Afraid in the Belizean jungle.
Cooper: What was your thought process of wanting to be on the show?
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Horvath: Formally, I’m a mountaineer. I climb mountains and monuments for charity and conservation and I have climbed the world’s tallest freestanding mountain, Mount Kilimanjaro. Everest is not on the card for me. I don’t think it’s morally or ethically responsible to climb over dead bodies and trash to get to a summit. Naked and Afraid is known as “The Everest of Survival Challenges,” so I took it on instead.
Cooper: Did you know the habitat they were going to put you in?
Horvath: No, I did not know. I got a short amount of time knowing where I was going. That way I could research flora and get an idea of plant and animal issues that I was going to encounter close to the ground.
Cooper: So, because of Naked and Afraid, you’ve got some experience with people filming you while you’re doing things for a period of time.
Horvath: Yeah, very comfortable around the cameras these days.
Cooper: Was that always the case, or did you kind of learn to ignore them?
Horvath: I don’t think that I’ll ever get used to hearing myself back in the recordings and stuff like that. I don’t know why, but I hate the way I sound, and I’m always thinking of things that I could have said a little differently. But, you know, through the years I have definitely become more accustomed to being on camera, and especially through Naked and Afraid. Because they have cameras on you 24/7 as you experience one of life’s most humbling experiences, you learn to make fun of yourself.
Cooper: What happens when you’re needing to go to the restroom?
Horvath: I mean, they have video of me using the restroom too. There’s not really a whole lot you can do to get away from the cameras unless you go out of the camp zone, which isn’t technically so safe for me. So, it’s a weird experience, but the crew is respectful and the network is wonderful to work with. Their goal isn’t to film and edit you relieving yourself in the show.
Cooper: I can’t get my head out of that. I think of myself in that environment and I would be so uncomfortable the whole thing. Are there people actually near you managing the cameras? How does that all work behind the scenes?
Horvath: Well, you don’t really think about being naked out there. You have other things to worry about, but I had the fortunate opportunity of having a great partner and he helped me get through the challenge. Meeting him for the first time naked out in the jungle was certainly an awkward situation, but we made it work and I’m so grateful for him.
Cooper: You’re trying to do the show again, do you know what type of environment they’re going to place you in this time?
Horvath: No, and I don’t know that I’ll be getting a call. All of us Naked and Afraid participants train throughout the year and we are ready to go because they can call us and be like, “Hey, can you go out in a week to XYZ?” It’s more of a just being prepared for the call.
Cooper: So, everyone that’s been there all agrees to accept the call?
Horvath: Most participants, yes.
Cooper: Do you think that was the most challenging thing that you’ve done compared to the mountain climbing? How would you rate it?
Horvath: I’m not sure. You know, Mount Kilimanjaro was very difficult as well. It was like a 50-mile climb. I had an extraordinary team accompany me, and it’s just a different kind of hard. I wouldn’t say that it’s harder by any means, but I’m grateful for that because I don’t feel like I would have been as successful on Naked and Afraid as I was without having first the experience of climbing Mount Kilimanjaro.
Cooper: What is on your bucket list?
Horvath: I have a lot of things on my bucket list, but what I do requires a lot of time, coordination, and funding, and I don’t yet have that.
Cooper: I know that you’ve done a lot of these activities for other nonprofits or charities and you’re raising money for their efforts, but you haven’t done that with yourself yet. Have you set up a nonprofit or anything like that?
Horvath: No, I have not set up a nonprofit. I would like to but it just hasn’t happened yet. It’s certainly in the cards for the future.
Cooper: Can you share a little bit about what you experienced when you were 21?
Horvath: I went out to a little bar with people I thought I could trust and had 2 beers and 2 shots throughout the course of the evening. I stepped outside to smoke because that’s what I did at the time— and the world went black. It’s suspected now that I was incapacitated by a date rape drug or knocked unconscious and left on train tracks to die. There’s a whole documentary about it now titled The Ascent. It is a two-part documentary where they accompanied me on my climb of Mount Kilimanjaro and really became investigators in the true crime side of things to get me answers.
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Cooper: Did the answers come out in the documentary?
Horvath: Yes. I’m not allowed to say a whole lot of what happens in the documentary, but they were able to uncover quite a bit. It’s very validating to watch the documentary. It’s horrifying. Before I ever started climbing, I was still in a hospital bed in 2015, and I was healing. I first saw Kyle Maynard, a quad amputee who crawled up Kilimanjaro, and I sent him a message back in 2015 before I ever moved to Colorado, before I ever started climbing mountains. I just congratulated him on becoming the first amputee to crawl up Mount Kilimanjaro. And then years later, I became the first female.
Cooper: What does your daily life look like?
Horvath: My daily life is kind of complicated. I climb mountains and monuments for charity and conservation in my free time–what little free time I do have–but I’m also a public speaker and I train year-round for opportunities like Naked and Afraid. I don’t have like a traditional 9 to 5, but I do social media content across platforms. I stay very busy.
Cooper: You are a writer as well, correct?
Horvath: Yeah, I graduated last year with a Bachelor’s in English and a minor in anthropology, and I am writing a memoir. It’s a collection of letters that will tell my story.
Cooper: Do you have prosthetics?
Horvath: I do have prosthetics, but I don’t wear them a whole lot because it’s difficult for me as a female. My weight fluctuates quite a bit. I have polycystic ovarian syndrome, and so I can fluctuate like up to 20 pounds in a month, so it makes prosthetic fittings really difficult for me. They’re good for flat ground, but considering I don’t have knees, it’s a whole different ballgame.
Cooper: I also saw that you are an actress. Was this pre or post limb loss? Or both?
Horvath: This was after limb loss. I got connected with an opportunity to film an indie film, You Are Here, with the Dylan Brody Project, and then I’ve done a couple other little things here and there, but for the 2021 climb of Mount Kilimanjaro, I had a documentary crew following me around for a long while.
Cooper: Do you know who Robert David Hall is?
Horvath: I do not.
Cooper: He was the first dual amputee to actually get a serious television role. He was the coroner for CSI. He would have a cane, but people didn’t know that he was using prosthetics as a dual amputee. He broke the barrier and led the way. I’m bringing that up just because of your background in acting. Are you thinking about doing more taking on more roles?
Horvath: My manager is actually putting feelers out there to get me on more projects. I’m also thinking about starting up a podcast. There’s a lot of stuff going on in the production realm for me. It’s all a work in progress for sure.
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Cooper: So, right now you’re in Seattle because of the Space Needle climb?
Horvath: I’m in Seattle for the climb and for the Seattle International Film Festival, where The Ascent, the documentary detailing my limb loss and my climb of Mount Kilimanjaro, will be screening today and tomorrow. I get to see it in IMAX today.
Cooper: Did you know that those two events would coincide?
Horvath: No, actually. I’ve seen pictures of the Space Needle ever since I was a little girl, but I’ve never been to Seattle before. So, I was curious. I was like, “Has anybody crawled the stairwell of the Space Needle?” I searched it on Google and it came back with, “No, nobody has crawled the stairwell of the Space Needle, but Mandy Horvath has done X, Y, and Z.” So, I took a screenshot of that and I sent it to my team and I was like, “What do you guys think about me trying to get permission to climb the Space Needle?” And they were totally on board. Seattle International Film Festival has been wonderful to collaborate with in coordination of everything.
Cooper: Oh, that worked out really well. Is there anything else you want to share?
Horvath: I’m training for the potential opportunity to do 40 Days for Foley. Sean Foley was the former executive producer of Naked and Afraid, and he was a dear friend of mine who passed to brain cancer. That’s part of the reason why I climbed the Space Needle. I climbed the Space Needle for the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center and the American Brain Tumor Association yesterday in his memory. I’ve also worked with Operation Ward 57, the Battle Buddy Foundation, Cars for Heroes, and most recently I worked with Wildly Kind organization in Portland. I was blessed to provide a lunch on behalf of Wildly Kind to a random stranger. That’s what they do is just random acts of kindness out in our communities. I love their cause.
