The New Late Night with ‘Hot Ones’ Host Sean Evans

The Town with Matthew Belloni

The Ringer

Society & Culture

4.3 • 847 Ratings

🗓️ 21 May 2025

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Matt is joined by Sean Evans, host of ‘Hot Ones,’ to discuss how he turned a niche internet interview show into one of the most popular celebrity talk shows in media. Sean discusses the business behind the show, how long it took to start making money, the art of interviewing celebrities, whether he views ‘Hot Ones’ as a competitor to late night, and what the future holds for both him and the show (02:22). Matt closes the show with an opening weekend box office prediction for ‘Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning’ (27:05). For a 20 percent discount on Matt’s Hollywood insider newsletter, ‘What I’m Hearing ...,’ ⁠⁠⁠click here⁠⁠⁠. Email us your thoughts! ⁠⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠⁠ Host: Matt Belloni Guest: Sean Evans Producers: Craig Horlbeck and Jessie Lopez Theme Song: Devon Renaldo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Look, it's not that confusing.
0:02.5	I'm Rob Harvilla, host of the podcast 60 Songs That Explain the 90s, except we did 120 songs.
0:08.9	And now we're back with the 2000s.
0:11.2	I refuse to say aughts.
0:12.5	2000 to 2009.
0:14.2	The Strokes, Rihanna, Jalo, Kanye, sure.
0:17.8	And now the show is called 60 songs that Explain the 90s, colon the 2000s.
0:22.6	Wow. That's too long a title for me to say anything else right now. Just trust me.
0:27.6	That's 60 songs that explain the 90s, colon the 2000s, preferably on Spotify.
0:43.4	It is Wednesday, May 21st. Last week at the YouTube Upfront in New York, there were stars everyone knows like Lady Gaga, Mr. Beast, Rob Grankowski, there were several I didn't know it all.
0:49.4	And then there was Sean Evans, who's definitely famous to me, and big enough of a deal that
0:53.9	YouTube put him on stage
0:55.1	at its big pitch to advertisers. At this point, if you're at least semi-online, you've heard of
0:59.9	hot ones, his interview show where celebrities are grilled while eating progressively spicier
1:05.0	chicken wings. It's a great concept. It's funny on its own, but it also works really well to move
1:09.8	past the publicist talking
1:11.3	points that most stars bring to regular talk shows. But it wouldn't really work if Evans wasn't
1:16.6	also a great interviewer. It's really impressive, actually. I'd put him up there with Letterman
1:21.1	and Kimmel as being very good at surprising his guests and ringing interesting anecdotes out of
1:26.5	them. Evans co-created Hot Ones in 2015 with Chris Schoenberger of First We Feast,
1:32.1	the former Complex magazine property that produces a show.
1:36.0	First We Feast now has more than 14 million subscribers and more than 4 billion views on YouTube.
	...

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