In anticipation of the release of his new album “Bando Stone & the New World,” Donald Glover sat down with Sean Evans on this week’s episode of “Hot Ones” to enjoy a platter of increasingly spicy chicken wings.
The “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” star spoke about his stage name Childish Gambino and why he decided to retire the moniker for good: “A collaborator of mine, fam and I, we talked about the death of Superman a lot . . . I always knew Childish Gambino was like a character and on some level I wanted it to end. I almost feel like Childish Gambino is like the boss from ‘The Office,’ like, ‘That stuff worked 10 years ago.’ All that stuff worked, but now it’s like a different thing. It’s like, ‘Oh it’s a little sad, but it’s like, wow, the cycle kinda continues, which is great, I think.’”
Glover came up with the name “Childish Gambino” after using an online Wu-Tang Clan name generator in college.
“The Childish Gambino story from the Wu-Tang Clan [that] RZA told me, it’s a story of a child turning into a boss,” Glover explainer later in the episode. “This last sunset walk is for the fans. This is for you.”
Elsewhere in his interview, Glover likened eating hot wings to taking hallucinogenics. “This does feel shamanic,” he said. “It feels pretty intense already. I feel like I’m about to do ayahuasca.”
Glover credited his “Community” co-star Joel McHale for building up his spice tolerance. In an attempt to get in shape for a shirtless scene during the show’s first season, McHale followed a strict diet consisting of strong coffee and eggs. McHale would put hot sauce to flavor his eggs and encouraged Glover to do the same.
“I started putting hot sauce on everything and then we started getting into, like, a thing with each other and I realized that must have boosted my tolerance,” the actor and rapper recalled. He also gave a special shoutout to McHale for (in a way) preparing him for his “Hot Ones” appearance.
Glover held on strong until the Da’ Bomb Beyond Insanity, which boasts a heat score of 135,600 Scoville heat units (SHU). When Evans asked Glover to name his proudest achievement as a grower of fresh produce, the “Atlanta” alum could barely focus on the question due to his mouth being on fire.
Glover persevered through the second-to-last sauce, High River Sauces’ Peppers Up!, which has a Scoville rating of 700,000 SHU. “It’s making me laugh, [Da’ Bomb] was so painful. This s**t is crazy,” he told Evans. Glover also conquered the infamous wings of death, which are smothered in The Last Dab: Xperience (2,693,000 SHU).
“Here’s the key to the last one — by this point, you know it’s going to be OK. That’s what’s crazy about it,” he said. “It does feel like OK [at the beginning], then you get to something where you’re like, ‘I can’t do this’ and then you get through it and you’re like, ‘Oh, I can do f**king anything.’”
Watch the full episode below, via YouTube:
