TV Host Details Terrifying Elevator ‘Free Fall’ That Nearly Killed Him

Will Neff left his fans speechless on Oct. 20 went he revealed a near-death experience in a Las Vegas hotel during TwitchCon. One of the unnamed hotel’s elevators apparently fell 10 stories and became stuck, leaving him and some friends thinking they were about to die. While the group eventually escaped the elevator, the situation was obviously traumatic. Neff, who is known to TV audiences for co-hosting Name Your Price and Attack of the Show!, detailed the ordeal in the latest episode of his podcast Fear&.

He notes that there was a previous incident in the elevator that should have tipped him off that something was up with the lift in question. Neff and Fear& co-host Hasan Piker used the elevator to go upwards before the incident. During that transport, the duo “heard a loud ‘ka-chunk’” and “were both kind of freaked out by it.”

“Will and I were looking at each other like did you just f—ing [hear] that, cause like it was a ‘loud thunk,’” Piker said, noting that it sounded like “screwdrivers falling off the top and falling next to the elevator in the elevator shaft.” However, their friends did not seem to be alarmed.

Piker parted ways with Neff and company, and the main group, which also included Fear& producer Marche, went down in the elevator. That ride is when things went terribly wrong.

“Right around like the 44th floor, it just free fell, and it felt like maybe like brakes caught,” Neff said. “Dust and stuff came out of the ceiling, and then it was not moving for like legitimately three or four minutes while I was pressing the emergency call button. And during this period of time, the attitude in the elevator was simply ‘Making Peace With Our Saviors.’ Everyone was ready to call it, dude.”

Neff, who is dating actress Caroline Kwan, joked that he had made peace with the situation and hoped Austin Show, a co-host for both Name You Price and Fear&, would “take advantage” of the tragedy for the sake of their game show.

“I had this weird epiphany,” Neff said. “I had two thoughts; first, ‘What a cool way to die’ and second, I was ‘Dude the candlelight vigil that Twitch is going to put on at TwitchCon is going to be so f—ing tasteful,’ and I just imagined Austin was going to take advantage of my death in a way that no one has ever taken advantage of a death.”

Show joked that “Will would have wanted me to continue to do the show,” to which Neff lightheartedly replied, “Don’t let my death go to waste!”

Will Neff and Austin Show went on to successfully host a Name Your Price episode the day after the elevator scare. Thankfully, it didn’t have to be a memorial installment.