Hot Ones

On the latest episode of Sean Evans’ Hot Ones Thursday (March 14), Zayn Malik recalled a time he encountered something even more fiery than the tear-inducing wings on the show: a pyrotechnical mishap at a One Direction concert many years ago, during which he saved bandmate Harry Styles from walking straight into special-effects flames.
“It’s actually amazing, ’cause it makes me look great,” the “Pillowtalk” singer joked of his superhero moment. “On stage, Harry was right next to a pyro, and the pyro was about to go off, because they were on timers. He had a towel over his head, and he had his head over the pyro and he didn’t see that the pyro was there.”

In footage from the 2013 incident, a concerned-looking Malik darts over to the “As It Was” musician — too busy wiping his face and hair with a towel to notice where he was going — and moves him away from the flames just in time. Meanwhile, Niall Horan and Liam Payne continue on with their business on stage, with only Louis Tomlinson appearing to notice what was happening to the side.

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“You see me run from one side of the stage and push him out of the way,” Malik continued in between bites of spicy chicken. “And the pyro explodes in front of his face — that was really dangerous.”

The former boy bander also fondly reminisced about the group’s go-to song for when technical difficulties with the speaker system occurred at shows. “We’d just burst into ‘Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,’ a capella,” he told Evans, laughing. “Just do the whole performance of that until the microphones were working again.”

“That was the thing that we had in our back pocket always like, ‘If the microphone goes, we’ve always got that,’” he added. “As if it was some amazing performance. Funny times.”

The new interview comes just one day after Malik announced his fourth solo album, Room Under the Stairs, which will arrive May 17. The artist told Evans that the project features a “very different sound” compared to anything he’s preciously released, adding that it’s “really raw and honest.”

“I hope people get that when they listen to it,” he continued. “I hope they get some insight into how I’m feeling and the things I’ve been going through over the last six or seven years while I’ve been writing this record.”

“I recorded most of it in a tiny little shoe cabinet in my house,” Malik added. “I felt like it was fitting to name it after that room so people can get even more sentiment into what the whole idea behind it was.”

Watch Malik on Hot Ones above.

While a social media post convinced Taylor Swift fans that she might be the next celebrity to appear on Hot Ones, it now looks like it was all a misunderstanding.
Complex Media’s First We Feast took to Instagram on Monday (Oct. 16) to share a cryptic teaser that a new Hot Ones challenge had been accepted. The caption reads, “Are you ready for it?” — which Swifties were quick to point out could be a reference to the superstar’s Reputation single “…Ready for It?”

The pop star’s fans flooded the comments section about how excited they were, with some even joking they would unfollow the First We Feast account if it wasn’t teasing a Swift appearance. By late Monday afternoon, the account had hidden the comments and turned off commenting, and also shared a new post with the message “we are fellow swifties too, we come in peace.” The video shared in the post includes the message “me to the hot ones talent booker after accidentally teasing that taylor swift was going to be on hot ones” with the Kris Jenner audio: “What would happen if you just called Taylor up?”

In another post, First We Feast shares a new hint for the next guest — “The fourth match of my career was against a bear” — making it clear that Swift is not the one. “Oh so it’s not Taylor,” one fan commented on the post, while another shared the Tyra Banks meme where she shouts “I was rooting for you! We were all rooting for you!”

Billboard has reached out to both First We Feast and Swift’s teams for comment.

The pop superstar has yet to appear on the popular web series, though her new love interest Travis Kelce tested his spice tolerance in a 2016 episode.

For those who aren’t familiar with the Hot Ones series, in each episode, host Sean Evans and a celebrity guest eat 10 chicken wings or vegan substitutes, with each wing prepared with a progressively spicier hot sauce. Meanwhile, the celebrity answers thoughtful and well-researched questions from Evans while trying to keep it cool amid the heat.

The newest season of the series has had some of the show’s biggest stars yet, including *NSYNC, Cardi B and Doja Cat. During the “Attention” singer’s episode, she talked about her recent album and her newly shaved head. “What I like most about it, I can focus on what I’m wearing and less about my hair,” the Grammy winner said. “Hair, it’s a whole other world. It’s like, f— that. I can just wear a cute outfit and be bald. There’s hella bad b—hes that are bald in this world.”

Billboard previously ranked the “show with hot questions and even hotter wings,” and you can see our list here.