Hot Ones host Sean Evans gave up his usual spot at the interview table to take the spicy seat for one night only at a special FYC event at Hollywood\u2019s Avalon on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Matt Belloni, a partner at Puck and host of The Ringer\u2019s popular podcast The Town, assumed position to grill Evans about his life and career as they chowed down on a condensed menu of five chicken wings (rather than the typical 10). But in the end, it was Belloni who was sweating, hiccupping and gasping for air. \u201cHoly shit,\u201d Belloni exclaimed after eating a wing coated with Da Bomb hot sauce. \u201cThis is not enjoyable.\u201d<\/p>\n
More from The Hollywood Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n The crowd, filled with TV Academy voters, seemed to love it as they were treated to a more personal side of Evans. For nearly an hour, Belloni quizzed Evans about his viral success, favorite and least favorite celebrity interviews, how he really feels about talent publicists and what he puts in his to-go box at Whole Foods. Oh, and whether or not he would agree to host President Donald Trump on Hot Ones. \u201cI want to do a debate,\u201d Evans said. \u201cI want the official presidential debate to be a Hot Ones.\u201d<\/p>\n Asked to name his favorite episode across 28 seasons and more than 10 years, Evans said he could easily pick 25 to 30. \u201cI always say if you\u2019re new to the show, check out the Conan O\u2019Brien episode or the Gordon Ramsay episode. Jennifer Lawrence is another one or Maya Rudolph. Paul Rudd is a classic. Charlize Theron,\u201d he noted. \u201cI always say to start with those. If you like those episodes, you\u2019ll probably like the show. If you don\u2019t like those episodes, stop there. There\u2019s nothing for you.\u201d<\/p>\n Fans have flocked to the show for the chance to see their favorite stars sweat, so Belloni asked Evans if any of them have been faking it for the cameras. Not the case, Evans said, adding that it\u2019s typically the opposite. \u201cSometimes you can tell someone\u2019s really, really holding it in. A funny memory that stand out in my mind was Pharrell [Williams], who was so stoic in the interview and then when we cut, he was almost like, \u2018Are the cameras off?\u2019 And he let it all out and became another person.\u201d<\/p>\n Speaking of behind-the-scenes personalities, Belloni asked Evans about his relations with Hollywood publicists, some of which can be fraught in high-profile celebrity interview shows like his. \u201cHonestly, now it has gotten to a point where publicists are so nice to us,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen we first started the show, publicists were always like public enemy number one on set. I kind of get where they\u2019re coming from now, but as like a young, ambitious person who believed in this thing before anyone else did, early on, like publicists would be crowding the table. They\u2019d have like a million questions. They\u2019d want to look at the interview, \u2018What kind of questions are you asking?\u2019 That sort of a thing. But I think we were so small time that we could kind of get pushed around and what I\u2019m really thankful for now is publicists now love having their clients on the show.\u201d<\/p>\n Evans said that even when an episode doesn\u2019t go well, he still finds it riveting to watch. \u201cEarly on, we shot an episode of DJ Khaled and he tapped out after the third win. We have a 10-wing gauntlet, that\u2019s my format,\u201d explained the host. \u201cIt\u2019s like somebody immediately rejecting the format right out of the gate. I\u2019m zigging, he\u2019s zagging. We were kind of like intentionally talking past each other and missing each other, but it does have this like unique adversarial energy. I was younger and more naive, and didn\u2019t have a full awareness about myself so it\u2019s this almost combative episode that I actually think is like so compelling to watch.\u201d<\/p>\n Beyond seeing Belloni sweat, the compelling moments at Tuesday\u2019s event came when Evans revealed some personal trivia. The Chicago native is obsessed with architecture, baseball cards, city skylines and once lived in a house owned by Chicago Bulls great Scottie Pippen. He kinda sorta believes in Bigfoot \u2014\u00a0\u201cthere\u2019s a logical part of my brain that\u2019s like, well, if there\u2019s Bigfoot, somebody would have seen Bigfoot, but I love the idea of getting lost in the mission to try to find Bigfoot,\u201d he said \u2014 and has a go-to order at the Whole Foods hot bar.<\/p>\n And his most recent celebrity DM came from stand-up star Tom Segura. \u201cHe said, \u2018I wish you and I had a kiss like Keke.\u2019\u201d As in Keke Palmer, who Evans named as someone he\u2019s had great chemistry with on the show \u2014 something that did not come as a shock to anyone who has been paying attention to their flirtatious encounters<\/a> over the years. \u201cWorking with Keke Palmer is always like a one plus one equals three situation,\u201d Evans said after name checking Conan O\u2019Brien. \u201cYou know who I loved interviewing was Viola Davis. I really loved interviewing Viola Davis. Paul Rudd is another one who immediately understood what we were doing and got me.\u201d<\/p>\n Belloni asked if he\u2019s ever asked former President Barack Obama to guest on the show. \u201cAt some point I remember some strange conversation about Secret Service and the wings,\u201d he revealed. \u201cThere was some logistical thing that we were like trying to work out, but I don\u2019t know how deep into the game it got. I don\u2019t know how close the booking ever came, but I do remember having some discussions about like how wing preparation would have to be different in the event of that.\u201d<\/p>\n It would be a bucket list moment for sure, but Evans said he\u2019s not lacking in that department as he gets to live those out on a near weekly basis. \u201cI\u2019ve gotten to do so many cool things through this cartoon existence that I have. A couple of weeks ago I went back to my alma mater, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, to give the commencement speech, which was super exciting,\u201d he said before revealing that he would love to one day host the Oscars or throw out a first pitch during the World Series. \u201cI\u2019m a big college football fan so that pregame show on ESPN to be like the celebrity guest picker is something that I\u2019ve always wanted to do.\u201d<\/p>\n Speaking of, Evans said he grew up loving late-night hosts like David Letterman and O\u2019Brien but he has no desire to follow in their footsteps now as he loves his YouTube perch.<\/p>\n \u201cSometimes people ask me like, \u2018Oh, what\u2019s next for you? What\u2019s the show after this?\u2019 Or, \u2018How are you going to duplicate the magic of Hot Ones?\u2019 I always tell people, \u2018My next show is going to be called just an interview show with Sean.\u2019 We\u2019re just going to do it the old fashioned way, sit and talk like we used to do. There is this [thinking] that we need celebrity plus high concept in order for anybody to pay attention but I don\u2019t think that\u2019s true. The interview\u2019s the oldest construct in the history of media. If you can do it well, you\u2019ll have a job in this town.\u201d<\/p>\n Plus he loves his team too much to chase bluer skies elsewhere. \u201cThere\u2019s no one in entertainment, there\u2019s no one in Hollywood that I would trade places in. When I look around, there\u2019s nothing that I\u2019d rather have. I love being the king of this castle. The chair that I sit in has become the most comfortable La-Z-Boy ever. The people who I started off making this show with are the exact same people who are making the show with me now,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen I think about the show and how much I believe in it, how much I believe in the people that help me build this digital media empire and then when I think about now we have the keys to it and we\u2019re driving the car and I think about all the places that we could take it to, there is no one that I trade places with now. There\u2019s no one I\u2019m jealous of.\u201d<\/p>\n Best of The Hollywood Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n Sign up for THR’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hot Ones host Sean Evans gave up his usual spot at the interview table to take the spicy seat for one night only at a special FYC event at Hollywood\u2019s Avalon on Tuesday. Matt Belloni, a partner at Puck and host of The Ringer\u2019s popular podcast The Town, assumed position to grill Evans about his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2455453,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[382451,322219,482646,427977,322220,31190,23844],"class_list":["post-2455452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-chicago-bulls","tag-hot-ones","tag-matt-belloni","tag-publicists","tag-sean-evans","tag-the-hollywood-reporter","tag-youtube"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/\u2018Hot-Ones-Star-Sean-Evans-on-Viral-Success-Keke-Palmer.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2455452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2455452"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2455452\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2455454,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2455452\/revisions\/2455454"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2455453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2455452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2455452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2455452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/span><\/div>\n
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