Sean Evans on 10 Years of ‘Hot Ones’ on YouTube: ‘The Best Dumb Idea Ever’
variety.comTodd Spangler NY Digital Editor Sean Evans’ celebrity guests on “Hot Ones” have cursed at him. They’ve cried. They’ve expressed deep regret about agreeing to come on his show.
It’s the hottest hot seat on YouTube, and Evans and his business partners are now looking to take “Hot Ones” to the next level after buying out the company that produces the show from BuzzFeed for $82.5 million. “Hot Ones” debuted in March 2015 with a simple conceit: to reimagine the chummy celeb interview in an extremely uncomfortable setting in which the host and guest eat progressively spicier chicken wings. (Its tagline: “The show with hot questions and even hotter wings.”) To date, Evans has hosted more than 360 episodes, and he assumes he’s easily consumed more than 3,000 wings.
The size of the audience the show pulls in on YouTube rivals that of the highest-rated late night shows on TV like “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” and “Jimmy Kimmel Live.” The most popular “Hot Ones” episodes in the past year have featured “Deadpool & Wolverine” co-stars Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman, Conan O’Brien, Jenna Ortega — and Donald Duck, in a bit sponsored by Disney.
Other top “Hot Ones” guests over the years have included Gordon Ramsay, Billie Eilish, Scarlett Johansson, Will Ferrell, Shaq, Kevin Hart, Tom Holland, Post Malone and Millie Bobby Brown.
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