{"id":499841,"date":"2026-06-18T22:41:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T22:41:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/499841\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T22:41:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T22:41:12","slug":"hot-ones-star-sean-evans-on-hosting-the-youtube-oscars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/499841\/","title":{"rendered":"Hot Ones Star Sean Evans on Hosting the YouTube Oscars"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tSean Evans<\/a> has been hosting his chicken-wing eating interview series \u201cHot Ones<\/a>\u201d for 11 years, and he can still remember exactly what the show felt like when he wasn\u2019t entirely sure anyone was watching.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cFrom the first couple of episodes, we\u2019d have guests stand up on the tables and do laps around the studio,\u201d Evans tells\u00a0Variety. \u201cThere was such gonzo chaos. I knew that the way it would translate to video would be unlike anything anyone\u2019s ever seen before.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tFour billion views later, the YouTube<\/a> series enters this Emmy cycle<\/a> in a newly merged category. Earlier this year, the TV Academy folded talk and scripted variety into a single outstanding variety series race, putting Evans in direct competition with late-night hosts Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers and Stephen Colbert, along with the long-running sketch comedy \u201cSaturday Night Live.\u201d For a show that has spent more than a decade getting clicks and views, being filed under \u201clate night\u201d is validating, and the merger feels like a coronation waiting to pop for aspiring creators.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201c\u2018Hot Ones\u2019 is a show that\u2019s very much influenced by the traditional talk shows that have come before us,\u201d Evans says. \u201cWe have this unique, novel, internet-y hook with the wings. But overall, we\u2019ve always thought of it as a traditional late-night
talk show.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tEvans\u2019 Emmy submission, a Kate McKinnon episode he calls \u201ca good reflection of the show,\u201d will be judged against the work of Colbert, whose CBS run ended in May. The slow-rolling collapse of traditional late-night shows has been the theme of the past year, with the FCC pressuring broadcasters, network economics imploding and streaming gobbling up all of the leftovers. Evans, who built his platform entirely on YouTube, is not dancing on the grave. On the contrary, he\u2019s still celebrating it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cYou can take away someone\u2019s show,\u201d Evans says, echoing what Letterman told Colbert on his final episode. \u201cBut you can\u2019t take away their voice. The reason I fell in love with show business, in an early, core memory way, was the lights, camera and action of it all. The Ed Sullivan Theater, the crowd is full, the curtain pulls, people are cheering, and David Letterman walks out. As much as I\u2019ve benefited from this, it is a bitter pill for me to swallow \u2014 the idea that the aspirational, swing for the fences show business is being replaced by being the No. 1 podcast on Spotify.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe format has produced enough genuine moments to make the \u201cgimmick\u201d label hard to sustain. Conan O\u2019Brien called his \u201cHot Ones\u201d appearance the best interview he\u2019s ever done. Gordon Ramsay, the guest Evans calls the most nerve-wracking booking of his career, has become a friend. Evans points to a specific signal for when an interview is working: \u201cI look for a shoulder drop. The guest realizes that it\u2019s not a normal interview show, and that goes beyond the scorching hot
chicken wings.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe broader case Evans is making this season has nothing to do with chicken. It is that YouTube is television, and pretending otherwise has become indefensible. The platform recently acquired the rights to air the Academy Awards<\/a>, beginning with the 101st ceremony in 2029, a move Evans sees as the natural next step.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cYouTube is good at these big swings,\u201d he says. \u201cIf you want monoculture moments, this is where these things need to live.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAsked whether he would ever host the Oscars himself, Evans demurred before saying, \u201cYes.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tBut can he sing? It is a helpful hosting trait to have while emceeing Hollywood\u2019s biggest night. <\/p>\n

\n\tHe chuckles, saying, \u201cI guess I\u2019ll have to lean into it and see how it goes.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sean Evans has been hosting his chicken-wing eating interview series \u201cHot Ones\u201d for 11 years, and he can…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":499842,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[5231,146,183257,85,46,225737,678],"class_list":["post-499841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-emmys","tag-entertainment","tag-hot-ones","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-sean-evans","tag-youtube"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=499841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499841\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/499842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=499841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=499841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=499841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}