I’ll be honest, I don’t usually spend time thinking about how or where people handle bathroom breaks — but when it comes to Alex Honnold and the kinds of climbs he does, it’s hard not to be a little curious.
Honnold, the internationally known climber, recently took on a 101-story building in Taiwan’s capital, Tapei, as part of a Netflix project — a risky ascent that quickly grabbed attention.
Reports suggested he earned $500,000 for the feat, though Honnold pushed back on that figure and said the amount was actually “an embarrassingly small amount”.
The 40-year-old finished the Taiwan climb in a little over 90 minutes. But other adventures have kept him on a wall far longer — like a prior ascent of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park, the towering 3,000ft rock formation, where he spent close to four hours climbing.
And over a stretch like that, it’s fair to wonder how anyone manages basic bodily necessities while hanging off a cliff…
That exact topic came up when Honnold sat down with Hasan Minhaj for an interview on Minhaj’s podcast — and Minhaj didn’t hesitate to ask what plenty of people have quietly wondered.
“How do you pee and poop when you climb?” he asked.
“You just pee and poop,” Honnold replied, prompting Minhaj to follow up by asking if he just ‘sh*ts his pants’.
“I’ve never actually sh*t in my pants but I’ve had a lot of serious emergencies while rock climbing,” Honnold explained. “You just, like, freaking go.”
He added that because you’re outdoors, “it doesn’t matter”, while also noting: “You just make sure you’re not impacting other climbers.”
Honnold also described one particularly intense moment when he had to support himself one-handed on a cliff while, as he put it, ‘taking a dump’.
“When things go sideways, things go sideways,” he said. “When it happens it happens and it’s better than pooping in your pants.”
Minhaj responded by calling it “gross” — though, to be fair, he was the one who brought it up.
Warning: video contains strong language
After the clip circulated, viewers filled the comments — including one person who wondered why nobody had put that question to Honnold sooner.
Another wrote: “I wonder how many climbers have been victims of friendly fire, or hikers below getting bombs dropped on them.”
Others focused on Minhaj’s reaction, laughing at how stunned he seemed by Honnold’s matter-of-fact answer.
“I have never seen Hasan stunned,” one person joked, while another added: “Sometimes you ask a question that gives you more than you bargained for.”
“He said ‘gross’ like he didn’t ask the question to begin with,” another commenter quipped.