![]() The best question: “Fact or fiction: You used to have police lights on your truck and you once pulled over Darius Miles on the freeway and made him late for Clippers practice?” Shaq laughingly opted to not answer this one, which could be seen as an answer in itself. O’Neal was able to get through all 10 wings but, perhaps feeling out-sauced, aggressively persuaded Evans to eat a single wing smothered in the contents of every bottle on the table and dubbed it “Shaq Sauce.” O’Neal humorously recounted the highs and lows of his basketball career by elaborating on differences in opinion with former teammate Kobe Bryant, recalled an important life lesson involving blowing a million dollars from his first NBA contract in under 45 minutes, and talked about shattering backboards as early as high school. The basketball legend and platinum-selling recording artist talked a big game by guaranteeing the wings would not get him to “make a face.” He did, a few times, but the most entertaining aspect of the episode was the conversation itself. Shaquille O’NealĪcademy Award winner, doctoral degree holder, and Olympic gold medalist Shaquille O’Neal added another prestigious accolade to his career by becoming the tallest Hot Ones guest of all time in 2019. While embedded in food media himself, Huang is certainly outside the mainstream television chef club, which gives him a perfect vantage point on the issues he believes are afflicting the industry. The best question: “What do you think is the biggest problem in food media in 2016?” In reliably filterless fashion, Huang pointed to celebrity chefs as being overhyped clowns and said if someone has to tell you why something tastes good, then it probably doesn’t. He returned two years later to take on the wings in the proper order, though only in slightly less discomfort. While Huang was unable to eat the remainder of the wings, he still provided one of the best interviews to date as Evans asked him about the transformative effects of receiving a zero-star restaurant review as well as his beef with Gordon Ramsay. ![]() Huang spent the next half hour in complete agony, asking if his life was in jeopardy, before the show was able to resume. Things got off track immediately when chef Eddie Huang came on and began to eat the wings in reverse order, prompting Evans to tell him “you just did a crazy thing that I think you are going to regret.” He did. The spice levels of the first seven wings are fairly manageable, giving Evans plenty of time to ask his guest some engaging questions before the interview implodes with the reliably explosive eighth wing, covered in the show’s most infamous sauce: Da’ Bomb. Here’s a selection of some of the best Hot Ones episodes that demonstrate why it’s the best celebrity interview show in ages. A guest could always be answering a question deceptively to make themselves look better, but there’s no hiding from the truth hidden in the wings. Many guests cry trying to eat all 10, others panic, one guest pooped his pants, and a very elite few display minimal signs of distress. These moments alone would be enough to make the show endlessly watchable, but it’s the wings that add an element of unpredictability, requiring you to come back for more. The questions posed are surprisingly thoughtful, often eliciting audible disbelief from the guest at the amount of preparation Evans has done for the interview. ![]() ![]() For comparison, that final wing is roughly 500 times hotter than a jalapeño. The spice level of each wing is measured in Scoville units, and to give you some idea of how spicy it can get, the first wing is measured at 1800 Scovilles while the final wing has over 2.5 million. It’s a one-on-one interview show where host Sean Evans asks guests remarkably compelling questions while both host and guest attempt to eat 10 increasingly spicy chicken wings. ![]() If you are unfamiliar with Hot Ones, the premise is simple. Hot Ones rejuvenated the format by solving two major problems: a) getting the guest out of their own head by providing them with a distracting challenge and b) removing any whiff of showbiz brevity with the nature of the challenge. But then came along a YouTube show called Hot Ones, a show with hot questions and even hotter wings. Outside of some podcasts and public radio programming, the appetite for self-serious conversations about the entertainment industry had diminished, and most of the personalities that had once made them digestible were either dead or retired. For a number of years, the on-camera long-form celebrity interview was in a rut. ![]()
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