Madison Beer Lives Out Her Dream While Eating Spicy Wings | Hot Ones

Hot Ones with Sean Evans featuring Madison Beer. Published February 12th, 2026 on the First We Feast YouTube channel. Running time: twenty four minutes. The Grammy-nominated singer and songwriter takes on the wings of death, and she has apparently been mentally preparing for this moment her entire life.

Section 1. The Setup and Early Wings

Madison Beer arrives at the Hot Ones table barely able to contain herself. "I like welling with tears. I cannot believe I am here," she says before a single wing has been touched. Sean Evans introduces her as a Grammy Award nominated singer, songwriter, and producer whose latest album Locket is out now, with an arena tour coming this summer including a date at Madison Square Garden.

Madison admits she was not a spicy food person growing up but recently leveled up to Bulldog Ramen levels of heat. Sean gives this a polite but honest assessment: "It is not a nothing. It is a good foundation. Certainly, it is not a nothing." The first wing, garlic delight, catches her off guard. "Oh no. Oh gosh, I am not touching this yet," she says, and Sean agrees to a standoff. By wing two, a pickled garlic Sriracha, she is already eyeing the lineup nervously and asking about the Carolina Reaper. Sean, with the deadpan delivery that makes the show work, informs her that every lineup has one.

The early questions dig into her music. Sean asks about the sequencing of her album Locket, comparing it to a comedian's first and last joke. Madison explains she likes to end on an emotional note, with Nothing At All carrying the personal message she wanted to leave listeners with, while Locket Theme opens in a dreamy landscape that pulls you in. She reveals that the Severance elevator ding sound in her song Complexity had to be remade because they could not clear the original sample. "We had to like remake the ding," she laughs.

Section 2. The Middle Wings and Musical Deep Cuts

Sean continues to impress Madison with his research, a signature Hot Ones move that consistently catches guests off guard. He asks about her talkbox playing on her first tour, and Madison lights up. She is a huge Daft Punk and Stevie Wonder fan and loves vocoder effects, though she admits the talkbox was physically difficult to play because she did not know you need to boil the tube to soften it. "Mine was like really hard and really tough to use," she says. Her final answer for favorite piece of studio equipment is the vocoder.

By wing five, the habanero and peach sauce, Madison is feeling the heat in her chest but still standing tall. She declares this one is actually less spicy than the previous wing, which earns a dance of celebration. Sean asks about her Long Island roots, and this is where the episode gets genuinely charming. Madison rattles off her bagel order from Bagel Boss: plain bagel, toasted, egg whites, monster cheese, salt and pepper. She credits the order to her mother, who is watching from off camera. When Sean asks her to choose between Ralph's Italian Ices and a frapple from the Jericho Cider Mill, she does not even hesitate. Ralph's, Blue Hawaii flavor, with vanilla chip as the second scoop. "It is a little bit of a weird combo because one is a milky one and one is an icy one, but it works for me."

Section 3. Summer Camp and the Emotional Escalation

The most unexpectedly sweet moment comes when Sean asks Madison to describe her ideal afternoon at Brandt Lake summer camp in New York. "Oh my god, I am going to start crying," she says. "You are pulling on my heartstrings." Summer camp was her favorite thing growing up, and the most devastating part of starting her music career at thirteen was not being able to go anymore. Her ideal day: early bird water ski, some arts and crafts, rehearsing for whatever play she was in that year, tubing, dinner, and then the evening trivia game where they used an upside down cooking tray with a spatula as a buzzer. "I was always really good at the random trivia."

The wings are escalating now. Homegrown Hell hits harder, and Dragon's Breath earns the assessment "that was a punch in the face." Sean asks about her most nerve-wracking live performance. Madison starts with Jimmy Fallon, tears already flowing from the heat, then pivots to the interesting observation that smaller venues are actually scarier than arenas. "You can see every single person's face very clearly. And so if one person is not into it, you just see them." In bigger venues, the crowd becomes abstract and you can focus on the front rows who are clearly there for you. She is excited for her upcoming tour because it includes the biggest shows she has ever done.

Section 4. The Final Gauntlet

Beyond Insanity, the Last Dab's warm-up act, sends Madison into full survival mode. Her right eye stops working. "I cannot see out of it anymore," she reports. Sean asks about her collection of vintage books, and through the haze of capsaicin, she describes loving old psychology books and random fairy tale books. She has The Giving Tree tattooed on her ankle, her first book that really impacted her, because "giving and being a kind person is very important and I think that book taught me that."

The Smoke Squash Reaper X delivers the Carolina Reaper moment she has been dreading. Sean throws her an F Marry Kill with video games: Fall Guys, Outlast, and Dress to Impress. Madison immediately swaps Outlast for Fortnite "just to make it harder for myself" and then uses the platform to deliver a direct message to Epic Games: "Stop changing things that we love about Fortnite. Keep it original. And give me a skin, please."

For the Last Dab, Madison goes all in with the biggest bite of the episode. "I had to," she says. "I ate half the wing." Sean closes by noting the theme of her current era: she is in total lockstep with her instincts. What is her gut saying right now? "Run. Get out. Leave quickly." Then she gets serious, tearing up again, this time not just from the heat. She talks about growing up on social media with intense scrutiny from a very young age, and how that made her scared to put herself out there. "My gut says put yourself out there. Do what feels good to you because life will pass you by." She refuses to let the people who hate on her prevent her from doing things that feel fun and good. "I hope that people can do the same."

After the cameras stop, Madison and Sean geek out about their favorite Hot Ones episodes. She loves Gordon Ramsay's appearance, and Sean describes it as a pivotal moment where the internet essentially peer pressured them into a room together. Madison also shouts out Jennifer Lawrence. The whole thing wraps with Madison offering to co-host the show, delivering a pitch-perfect impression of Sean's opening.

Key Takeaways

One. Madison Beer conquered the full Hot Ones gauntlet, from garlic delight through the Last Dab, while maintaining her composure better than many guests despite claiming to have only recently started eating spicy food.

Two. Her album Locket features a Severance Easter egg in the song Complexity, where the elevator ding had to be recreated because the original sample was not cleared. She describes humor as essential relief from the darkness that naturally infuses her music and conversation.

Three. Madison is playing Madison Square Garden this summer, which she describes as a lifelong dream on par with appearing on Hot Ones. The Grammy nomination has been a lighter version of checking that box, but the live performance milestones carry more emotional weight for her.

Four. The most personal revelation is her relationship with fear and scrutiny. Growing up on social media from thirteen years old created a deep hesitancy about putting herself out there that she is only now learning to overcome by following her instincts rather than avoiding criticism.

Five. Her Long Island roots run deep, from the Bagel Boss order passed down from her mother to the summer camp at Brandt Lake that she describes as the favorite thing in her childhood, taken away too early by a career that started before she was ready to let go of being a kid.