What Did We Do to Deserve This Hugh Jackman Pee Story?
This one’s a doozy, so I’ll cut right to the chase: On Wednesday, Hugh Jackman appeared on The Howard Stern Show and told a story about a time he peed his pants. Well, tights, actually. During their chat, Jackman brought up his role as Gaston in a 1995 Australian production of Beauty and the Beast. Somehow, Stern immediately seemed to recall that Jackman had an accident on stage during one of the shows. “When you did that role, did you piss your pants on stage?” he asked, without sharing how he obtained this information. The answer, obviously, was yes.
Long (and gross) story short, Jackman says he was getting a lot of headaches and went to see a naturopathic doctor who told him he was dehydrated and recommended he drink “a lot” more water. Naturally, Jackman decided to drink two gallons before one of his performances. During his big solo, Jackman had to lift Belle up in the air, and the action apparently caused “a little bit of piss” to come out, he says.
“I’m wearing red tights and I thought, uh-oh,” he recalled. “At the end of the song, I had a choice: You sing that F sharp … I either sing it and piss my pants or I don’t sing it and humiliate myself. So, I sang it. And it was just going.” “It,” in this situation, refers to his pee, if that wasn’t clear. If you’d like to get a visual of Jackman’s tights, Disney on Broadway recently posted a clip (seemingly unrelated to the Stern interview) from the production on TikTok, although he’s wearing black bottoms instead of red — maybe a wise costume change.
Jackman’s story did not end there. He says he “turned upstage” and realized the pee was somehow not visible on his legs just yet. “I’m laughing to myself thinking, my boot is filled with piss, both boots, filled with piss. And somehow I’m on stage with 1,500 people and I’m getting away with this.” But his Beauty and the Beast dresser, who was just offstage, knew better. “She’s looking at my crotch. And I look down as I walk off and it’s completely wet. So in that three minutes after the song, it had seeped through.” I wonder where that dresser is now.
While it’s unclear if Jackman has peed on stage again in the 30 years since then, he doesn’t seem to be phased by it. “Nothing can embarrass you after that,” he concluded. I’m sure!
Related