Sean Evans

Sean Evans is an American YouTuber who is best known for co-creating and hosting the series Hot Ones, in which he interviews celebrities as they eat progressively spicier chicken wings.

Sean Evans was born in the Chicago suburb of Evanston to Michael Evans and Donna Arthofer. He has a brother named Gavin. Evans is a 2004 graduate of Crystal Lake Central High School, where he played football and baseball. He graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign in 2008 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in broadcast journalism, where a professor suggested he become a weatherman. He grew up looking up to the interviewing prowess of Howard Stern, Jimmy Kimmel, David Letterman, and Adam Carolla. One of his earliest memories, he says, is his father taping Late Night with David Letterman during the week and binge-watching them all on a Saturday.

Before working as an interviewer, Evans was a copywriter for the Chicago tourism board. During that time, he freelanced for Complex Magazine, doing on-screen interviews with celebrities such as 2 Chainz and Steph Curry in New Orleans. Complex liked his interviews and offered him a full-time job, so he quit his copywriting job and moved to New York a month later.

The idea for Hot Ones sprang from a meeting in which Evans and Chris Schonberger, the general manager of online magazine First We Feast, were brainstorming ways to create a fresh take on the celebrity interview. In a 2022 Vanity Fair profile about Evans, Schonberger described the initial discussions about a hot wing interview show: "I just thought it was funny... Then we kind of saw this magic happen in the room". Evans and Schonberger realized that the concept carried an added feature: the hot sauce helped break down guests' inhibitions and encouraged them to set aside the usual late night TV-style talking points.