Sean Evans Explains Why Maya Rudolph Turned Down ‘Hot Ones’: “There Is No Way”

Although Maya Rudolph has hilariously appeared on three fictional episodes of YouTube‘s Hot Ones, don’t expect her to ever take the spicy challenge in real life.

The First We Feast show host Sean Evans recently revealed that the Saturday Night Live alum turned down an appearance on the show when he played himself for a Season 2 scene of her Apple TV+ series Loot, in which Rudolph’s billionaire philanthropist character Molly does the challenge.

“When I did Loot, I was like, ‘Hey, you know, here you are now doing fake Hot Ones for the third time. When Loot comes on, you should come on the show. That would be a nice full-circle thing,’” recalled Evans to Bowen Yang on a recent Hot Ones. “And then, she said to me — I’ll never forget this — she goes, ‘Sean, I’ll sit down with you and talk about whatever. There is no way in fuh-UCK I’m ever eating those wings!’ That’s what she said to me.”

Yang explained, “You just did the Maya Rudolph vowel separation, I love it!”

Evans raved to Yang earlier in the episode, “If you get parodied on Saturday Night Live, that’s a win. But also, the other thing that I think is funny is that someone from Saturday Night Live has to go and source a Sean Evans outfit. … Hair is pretty easy.”

Before the Loot scene, Rudolph played Beyoncé in a Hot Ones sketch on a 2021 episode of SNL that she hosted, which earned her an Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series. She reprised the sketch last season as country Beyoncé, with cast member Mikey Day reprising his impression of Evans.

“I don’t even know if I nailed her,” Rudolph told Deadline of the latest Beyoncé sketch. “That’s the thing, we had done Beyoncé in so many different incarnations that it just became more of like whatever the Beyoncé character was that we created at the time, which I’m glad that she has a good time with too. But it’s the most fun.”