Pharrell Williams Opens Up About Working With Missy Elliott, Daft Punk & More on ‘Hot Ones’

Pharrell Williams is the latest guest to test his taste buds on Hot Ones, and while he was feeling the heat of the increasingly spicy chicken wings before him, the multi-hyphenate artist opened up about working with some of his long list of collaborators.

When host Sean Evans asked him about his teenage years “jamming out” with soon-to-be fellow superstars like Timbaland, Missy Elliott, the Clipse and more, Williams that it felt like “kids having fun.”

He continued, “We didn’t know where it was going to end up. That’s the thing, falling in love with the process. It’s not necessarily the ‘there,’ it’s the ‘getting there,’ it’s the ‘going,’ it’s the process, it’s the journey.”

Later on in the interview, Evans listed off some of Williams collaborators, and challenged him to share his first thought about them in the studio. With Daft Punk, Williams noted that being in the studio with a “robot” is “euphoric, because you’re around two absolute masters.”

Beck, Williams says, is “one of the most eclectic people with one of the deepest mental libraries of all kinds of records,” calling him a “walking almanac.” He wrapped up by calling N.O.R.E. “so funny, bombastic with the energy he wants to evoke when he’s making a song.”

Beyond releasing his biographical Lego film, Piece by Piece, on Oct. 11, it’s gearing up to be an exciting next few months for Williams. The star will serve as a co-chair for the 2025 Met Gala among a group of Black men including Colman Domingo, Lewis Hamilton, A$AP Rocky and honorary chair LeBron James.

This year’s theme is “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style,” which draws inspiration from Monica L. Miller’s 2009 book, Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity.

Williams’ Something in the Water festival will also return in April 2025 after being postponed last month. “Dearest Virginia, I love you with all my heart,” he wrote in a statement at the time. “Nobody loves you more than I do. Virginia doesn’t deserve better, Virginia deserves THE BEST. So SOMETHING IN THE WATER has to match that. It just isn’t ready yet.”

Watch Pharrell Williams on Hot Ones below.