The archive · Content & Film · Product decision · 2015–2023
Hot Ones turns hot wings into the interview — 300 episodes and A-list guests
First We Feast's Hot Ones makes celebrities eat ten escalating hot wings while answering questions — 300 episodes, 8.6M followers, SNL parodies.
First We Feast (Complex)
What it had to solve
Complex had celebrities, rappers and athletes passing through its building constantly, but its interviews were standard and forgettable; creator Chris Schonberger wanted a cheekier, British-style format that could not be faked.
How it works
Chris Schonberger created Hot Ones for Complex's First We Feast label to turn the celebrity traffic already inside the building into something no one else had. The seed was his childhood habit of mail-ordering absurdly spicy sauces as icebreakers — 'it's impossible to put on a facade when you're dealing with something spicy' — and the original pitch email already specified wings.
The formula stayed deliberately primitive: ten wings in escalating Scoville heat, black drapes, a pitcher of water and a glass of milk. Sean Evans, then an on-air host at Complex, signed on immediately and eats alongside every guest, asking carefully researched questions while both of them sweat. Charlize Theron's 2018 appearance was the watershed that made A-listers treat the show as a badge of honor.
By its 300th episode in June 2023, Hot Ones counted 8.6M followers across social platforms and had generated 385M TikTok views that year alone, plus 91.9M YouTube Shorts views. It spawned its own hot sauces, frozen wings, a party game, a Grubhub pop-up, the spinoff Heat Eaters, and parodies on Saturday Night Live — the standard markers that the format had entered culture.
Why it lands
- Heat makes performance impossible: the guest's involuntary reaction becomes the content, which is exactly the pitch — a real person, not a press junket persona.
- The host suffers with the guest, which makes the ordeal feel fair and turns shared pain into the trust that unlocks deeper answers.
- The format is so rigid and cheap to reproduce that the guest becomes the only variable; there is no set-design or gimmick arms race to lose.
- It reused assets Complex already owned — celebrity access, an office, an on-camera host — so the pilot cost almost nothing to test.
What it did
By June 2023 the show had aired 300 episodes, with 8.6M followers across social platforms, 385M TikTok views that year and 91.9M YouTube Shorts views; guests range from Gordon Ramsay and Billie Eilish to Oscar-campaigning Cate Blanchett, and SNL has spoofed it.
What you can take
Put the interviewee in a state they can't perform through: a physical constraint forces authenticity, and a rigidly consistent format lets the guest — not the gimmick — carry every episode.
Since then
The series became a required stop on the celebrity promotional circuit, with studios booking Oscar-season talent like Cate Blanchett. BuzzFeed, Complex's parent company, pushed it into commerce: signature hot sauces and frozen chicken products in retail, a party game, and a Grubhub delivery pop-up where fans could eat the same wing lineup. First We Feast announced the spinoff Heat Eaters in June 2023, and the show continues to run past 300 episodes with parodies and imitators confirming its place in the format canon.
Sources
- Creator Chris Schonberger Explains How 'Hot Ones' Caught Fire
- 'Hot Ones' Hits 300 Episodes: How Scorching Chicken Wings Conquered YouTube and Hollywood
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