When comedian Conan O’Brien’s Hot Ones episode began to pick up steam across the internet, some of his friends got the wrong idea.
“I had a bunch of friends who saw my name all over Twitter and the first assumption is, ‘He’s dead,’” O’Brien said on his Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend podcast. “I did have people say, ‘Oh my God, I thought, “Finally!”‘”
O’Brien’s appearance on the YouTube hot wings interview show, hosted by Sean Evans, made waves upon its release earlier this month, with fans in awe at the comedian’s commitment to an unhinged performance that featured O’Brien chugging hot sauce and rubbing it on his face and chest. As a result, the comedian said, he was left with “incredibly runny” eyes and a mouth that “really hurt.” He also experienced “burning” across his skin, especially where the substance was stuck underneath his wedding ring.
“You wash your hands right afterward, but some of the sauce got underneath my wedding ring,” he said. “I took it off and I was like, ‘Oh right, there’s acid underneath it.’”
O’Brien said he doesn’t typically eat spicy food — not even tabasco or tapatío — but that there’s not much he won’t do in pursuit of a joke.
“If I think something will be funny, I’ll do it and deal with it later,” he said, before detailing exactly what it was like dealing with the result of the spice intake.
“I found a construction site where they were doing spot welding, and I went there. And I said, ‘Gentleman, if you want, I can weld these girders for you in, I’m guessing, about 15 minutes. You’ll need to avert your eyes because I’ll be dropping my pants,’” he joked. “So there’s a building in the Mid-Wilshire district that’s going up, and I think I did about 65 rivets in the building. People were driving by saying, ‘Conan O’Brien’s pants are around his ankles, and I think fire is shooting out of his ass, and he’s welding a building.’”
Despite the extreme performance, O’Brien said he didn’t go into the day with much of a plan.
“I was aware of the show, obviously it’s very successful show,” he said. “I went in thinking, whatever happens, I just have to eat all the wings, and just go for it and make a fool of myself. I kind of had that plan in mind, but didn’t know much beyond that.”