Transcript: Sean Evans’ Speech at 2026 University of Illinois Commencement

Editor’s Note: In his 2026 University of Illinois Commencement Speech, Hot Ones creator and alumnus Sean Evans reflects on how his time on campus shaped his career from a student editor into a prominent digital journalist. Speaking to the graduating class, he uses humor, stories of his famous celebrity interviews, and poignant personal memories to encourage graduates to take life “one wing at a time” as they face the unpredictable future. Ultimately, Evans emphasizes that success is built on a foundation of hard work, persistent curiosity, and surrounding oneself with a trusted team. (May 21, 2026)

TRANSCRIPT:

Sean Evans Opens His Commencement Address

SEAN EVANS: Thank you and thank you for the kind words, Chancellor Isbell. I’m happy to see you’ve made a full recovery after a go round with the wings of death a few weeks ago.

And good morning, esteemed faculty, families, alumni and most importantly, the graduating class of 2026. I’m honored to be here. It’s also very humbling. There’s a long list of prestigious, distinguished people who have stood at this podium before me from Nobel laureates to Pulitzer Prize winners and even an astronaut. But this year you get me. A chicken wing talk show host from YouTube. Of great esteem and dignity, I’ll have you know.

But I want to say thank you to the University of Illinois for extending me this invitation that I promise you surprised me just as much as it’s confusing your parents right now.

What Hot Ones Is All About

So unlike the distinguished speakers who’ve come before me, I feel like I should start by at least explaining myself. I host a show called Hot Ones where I interview some of the most famous people in the world while we eat wings doused in progressively spicier hot sauces. Over the last decade plus, I’ve interviewed hundreds of people from icons of broadcasting, top flight athletes, A-list actors and world conquering pop stars.

With the truth serum of hot sauce, the celebrity guests on our show have actually offered up some surprisingly profound life advice.

The legendary late night host Conan O’Brien reminded us to read widely and read well, somehow summoning the mental strength to reference Chaucer and Don Quixote after taking a swig of the Bomb Beyond Insanity straight out of the bottle.

The streaming superstar Kai Cenat, who, by the way, has a career that didn’t even exist when I graduated, reminded me that “slow motion is better than no motion.” A gentle reminder that incremental steps towards a goal is much better than doing nothing at all. As I always say, take life one wing at a time.

Then there was fellow University of Illinois alum, Nick Offerman — that’s right — who actually stood at this very podium for commencement speech back in 2017, and he instilled the value of building and repairing things, saying on the show, “A person who can fix what’s broken, whether it’s a chair or a relationship, will always be someone who’s in need.”

And then finally, rock star Dave Grohl, who said after eating the last dab, “It’s not about your mouth, it’s about your butthole.” A profound reminder that the test of any experience oftentimes comes after it’s over.

A Life Beyond Anything He Could Have Dreamed

As silly as Hot Ones is on paper, it’s given me a life beyond anything I’ve ever could have dreamed, from entertaining millions of fans all across the world, to being parodied on Saturday Night Live, to appearing in Super Bowl commercials, and performing alongside Stephen Colbert at the Kennedy Center. If nothing else, I stand on this stage as a living testament to how unpredictable life can be. Along the way, though, I’ve learned to take it one wing at a time.

Growing Up in Illinois

I grew up in Crystal Lake, Illinois, which is about an hour and a half northwest of Chicago. That’s good to hear. Got the 815 contingent in the building.

What Illinois Really Gave Me

SEAN EVANS: Here’s what Illinois gave me that no coastal master of fine arts ever could, the complete absence of anyone telling me I was special before I’d earned it. The Midwest doesn’t hand you confidence, it makes you build it. Growing up in Illinois, studying here, it makes you work for pats on the back, and that’s good preparation for the real world, where trust me, no one cares until you give them a reason to. It can be uncomfortable and deeply unglamorous, but believe me when I say that it is a gift.

U of I also fostered in me a sense of myself creatively. One of my lasting memories here were the late nights that I spent at Gregory Hall, editing video packages. That’s what I’m talking about, my college of media in the back. Editing video packages until 2 o’clock in the morning. There was something about the stillness, the silence on campus that I think gave me an outsized focus. And to this day, my best work comes in the middle of the night.

In the studio before an interview, I like the place silent, because it brings me back to the habits that I formed here as a student. These are not things that I learned in a writer’s room in New York. They’re habits I learned right here in Champaign.

There was also a professor here as well, John Paul, who’s sitting right in the front row here. John Paul is someone who told me essentially that I wasn’t terrible at this. That I had a career in broadcasting if I wanted it bad enough. And at 20 years old, someone telling you you can do this is everything. And I took that energy with me from Champaign to New York and Hollywood. John, while I’m in town, let’s get tacos again. What do you say?

The 95% Nobody Sees

Here’s the thing about Hot Ones that I think is worth saying out loud, because it took me a while to understand it myself.

What you see on screen, the wings, the sweating, the celebrities cursing me out after eating Blair’s Mega Death Sauce with liquid rage, that’s really only 5% of the job. And I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. The other 95% is preparation, reading, watching, listening.

If I’m interviewing Ariana Grande, her music becomes the soundtrack of my life for a week. If Matthew McConaughey is coming in the studio, I’m ending every night with a double feature. And if Shaquille O’Neal is coming into the studio, I’m watching every documentary and highlight reel on YouTube. If a job is defined by what you do the most, I’m not an interviewer. I’m a student. And the reason I’m standing here today, I honestly believe this, is because I never stopped being one.

Everyone Has to Start Somewhere

Through this cartoon existence I have, interviewing famous people over spicy wings, I’ve come to appreciate more than ever that everyone has to start somewhere and we’re all just figuring it out. I’ve sat across from world-class athletes who’ve seemed genuinely nervous staring at me from across the table. I’ve seen Oscar award-winning actors sweat through their shirts and world tour headlining pop stars reduced to tears.

One of the things that I love to research and ask guests about on the show, it’s their first jobs. The things they did before they were famous. And that’s not because these tend to be anecdotes filled with meaning or great life lessons. It’s actually just for the pure comedic value because most of the time they were terrible.

Kevin Hart was a shoe salesman before he ever sold out an arena as a stand-up. Hugh Jackman worked as a birthday clown before he ever became Wolverine. And I, for my part, used to do architectural boat tours of the Chicago River before I ever made a dime on camera. I did love that job. But the point is, where you start is not where you’ll end up.

Your next move after you leave campus, it’s just the first step, like I always say, one wing at a time.

As wild and unpredictable as my life has been, the one thing that has remained consistent is the group of like-minded collaborators that I’m surrounded by. People who are willing to believe and commit to a dumb idea just as much as I did.

A Team That Believed

For dramatic effect. My producers, Dom and Victoria, who showed up for me when the show was nothing. To my brother, Gavin, who’s done more research on celebrities than any human being on Earth. To our editor, Colin, who we discovered making Hot Ones meme edits for fun and then uploading them to Reddit. Sarah Honda, who runs my entire life. And my partner, Chris Schoenberger, who gave me the best dumb idea ever. To interview celebrities while eating increasingly spicy chicken wings, which has since become a media company that we now run with more than 60 full-time employees, including my camera and sound guys.

Many of them have been with me since day one. In fact, some of them are with me today, literally. Hi, Dom. Hi, Sarah. What’s up, Gavin? Hi, Victoria.

11 years in, I don’t do this show because of the wings. Believe me, trust me, it is not the wings. I show up because of who’s on the other side of the camera when I’m eating them. The spark of an idea ultimately means nothing if there’s not a team to nurture and sustain it. So if you find those people, don’t let them go.

A Tribute to Mom

I’m going to wrap up here in just a second. But before I go any further, I want to say thank you to all of you for being here. But before I go any further, I want to acknowledge someone who is not here today, but if I know her at all, she is absolutely watching.

My mom was an Illini. This was her school. And when I was a teenager, before we lost her to a battle with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, one of the last conversations that we ever had was her curiosity about where I was going to go to college. I chose Illinois.

I’ve thought about that conversation a thousand times since, whether she knew what she was doing, if she was planting a seed, if going here was her way of keeping me close.

So mom, I don’t know if you can see this, the sea of orange and blue, the families in the stands, these extraordinary students in their caps and gowns, but if you can, look at us. Who would have thought, not me, but I know that you did. Thank you.

Class of 2026: Savor the Flavor

Don’t worry, I’m going to make it. I’ll get to the finish line because I’m here on the proverbial wing 10 of this commencement speech.

Class of 2026, this is your moment. I don’t care if the last couple years didn’t exactly go to plan. This is for the 2 a.m. panic that you had the night before the final, the class that you had to take three times, the semester that nearly broke you. It’s all in the past because you’re sitting here in Gee’s Memorial Stadium with a degree from the University of Illinois, the best university in the world, and no one can take that away from you.

So for right now, just right now, don’t worry about what happens next. Savor the flavor of this wing. Through hard work, you’ve discovered something important about yourself. You learned to be a student and to always stay curious. The person to your left, the person to your right, you’ve battled through the trenches, you’ve made it to the other side, you’ve learned something about yourself, and you don’t need to know what happens next. You just need to be ready for the heat.

And as you celebrate graduation today, remember what that really means. You are prepared, and now there’s nothing left to do but roll out the red carpet for you. This camera, this camera, this camera. Congratulations, class of 2026, and thank you very much.