Pink Teases Tony Awards Hosting Plans: ‘There Will Be Stunts’

Generally speaking, the announcement of Grammy-winning pop powerhouse Pink as the host of the 79th Tony Awards on Sunday was met with two immediate reactions: a) will she fly, and b), why her?

While Pink was a “theater kid” growing up (more on that shortly), the second question was actually her initial reaction as well, as she told Variety at a press event on Tuesday.

When the call came, “I was like, ‘Why me? I’ve never been on Broadway,’ which is probably the collective eye roll that I felt,” she recalled with a laugh. “But they said, ‘Because we want more viewership.’ And I was like, ‘Great! I have a purpose! I’m your guy!’ So here we are — it’s a beautiful group of people to celebrate.”

As for the first question — regarding what we can expect to see when she hosts the show from New York’s Radio City Music Hall on Sunday — she did not give specifics, but told another interviewer cagily, “Everyone always expects me to fly, so I literally walk into every building like, ‘Where can I hang from? What’s strong enough?’ They were like, ‘Calm down, it’s Radio City.’ So we’ll see — but I’m doing some things!”

She did allow that there will be “many, many, many costume changes, as many as I can possibly do. There will be stunts — and not just for me. I’m hoping to cajole another performer into taking a chance with a stunt, so we’ll see! And Amber Ruffin, who wrote ‘Bigfoot,’ is helping me write my whole Tonys [script].”

The intro, she continued, will be a “seven and a half minute opener that my buddies Benj and Justin wrote” — Pasek and Paul, respectively, of course, writers of “Dear Evan Hansen,” “La La Land” and “The Greatest Showman.” “It’s gonna be raucous and wild and ridiculous,” she continued. “It’s sort of a throwback, but not really. There’s gonna be like 170 people onstage with me, and I get to be ridiculous and make fun of myself right away, which was my one rule.”

Pink may not have been an obvious choice for the hosting role, but she’s certainly no dilettante. “My mom was an E.R. nurse, and she would save up all her money, and once a year we would go downtown and get tickets to a show, a restaurant and an outfit,” she recalled to a different interviewer on Tuesday. “It was my favorite night with my mom every year. We’d saw ‘Phantom of the Opera,’ ‘Les Miz,’ ‘La Cage aux Folles.’ I wanted to be Cosette by the time I was nine. It definitely shaped what I do as Pink.” (It also doesn’t hurt that her songs are currently featured in two Broadway productions — “Raise Your Glass” in “Moulin Rouge! The Musical” and “Fuckin’ Perfect” in “& Juliet.”)

Asked if a certain show in particular was her gateway, she told Variety after a pause, “Probably ‘Annie,’ the movie. And ‘Les Miz,’ of course, and ‘Fiddler on the Roof,’ so many. I trained classically when I first started taking singing lessons, so I sang ‘Phantom of the Opera’ and started in a total theater place.”

Yet before taking on the hosting role, Pink had to clear it with one person: Her 14-year-old daughter, Willow, who has aspirations for a Broadway career. “She’s very serious about it, and this is her lane,” Pink said. “So me getting her permission was [important]: I was like, ‘If you don’t want me to do this, I’m not doing it,’ but she was very supportive and very excited — her first reaction was, ‘Do I get a seat?’”

She does, although Willow will not be joining her mom onstage Sunday. “I have been trying to convince Willow to be in a show with me for years,” Pink said, “But she has to do her own thing — she’s really hung up on this nepo-baby thing.”

This year’s Tony Awards race is expected to feature major marquee names who stood out on Broadway over the past year, including Lea Michele (“Chess”), Joshua Henry (“Ragtime”), Lesley Manville (“Oedipus”) and John Lithgow (“Giant”), among others.

Pink has seen many of the shows that are nominated, she told Variety. “I loved ‘Ragtime,’ I loved ‘Lost Boys’ because the staging is incredible, I loved Jessica Vosk and ‘Beaches.’ I loved ‘Bigfoot’ — that was probably my favorite show. I loved it so much, I had two nine-year-olds with me and I was like, ‘This is so inappropriate,’ everyone was so ridiculous and lovable and it was so funny and such a sweet story,” she laughed. “I have so many more to see — I haven’t seen ‘Schmigadoon’ yet, I haven’t seen ‘Titanique’ yet.”

Another highlight of the year has been her guest stint hosting “The Kelly Clarkson Show” — which she has stressed she is not taking over. But she’s such a natural that it begs the question of whether she’d like her own talk show.

“I’d never say never!,” she said. “I like connecting with people, I like getting the truth out of people,” before turning less serious, “I kind of thought for a while I would like to revamp ‘The Gong Show,’ but I’m kind of over that.”

The Tony Awards ceremony will broadcast live to both coasts on the CBS Television Network and stream on Paramount+ on June 7 at 8 p.m. EST.