Pink hints at Tony Awards hosting plans

Award-winning pop icon Pink will host the 79th Tony Awards this Sunday, igniting two main reactions: will she showcase her aerial tricks, and why was she selected?

Although Pink explored theatre in her youth, she shared a similar initial query during a discussion with Variety at a press event on Tuesday.

Upon being offered the hosting role, “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.”

Regarding what audiences can look forward to when she steps onto the stage at New York’s Radio City Music Hall on Sunday, she kept a tight lid on details, teasing, “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 mentioned 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 opening act will be “a  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.”

She continued, “It’s gonna be raucous and wild and ridiculous. 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.”

While Pink might appear to be an unusual choice for this position, she isn’t exactly new to it.

“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 recounted to another journalist 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.”

When asked if there was a particular show that sparked her enthusiasm, she pondered before telling Variety, “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.”

Before agreeing to the hosting role, Pink thought it essential to seek advice from one person: her 14-year-old daughter, Willow, who has an interest in pursuing a Broadway career.

“She’s very serious about it, and this is her lane,” Pink shared. “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?’”

Even though Willow will have a seat, she won’t be appearing on stage with her mum on Sunday.

“I have been trying to convince Willow to be in a show with me for years,” Pink confessed, “But she has to do her own thing — she’s really hung up on this nepo-baby thing.”

This year’s Tony Awards are anticipated to spotlight celebrated figures who have left an impression on Broadway during the past year, including Lea Michele (“Chess”), Joshua Henry (“Ragtime”), Lesley Manville (“Oedipus”), and John Lithgow (“Giant”), among others.

Pink mentioned she has attended several of the nominated productions; she remarked to 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.”

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