Former ‘Double Dare’ Host Marc Summers Recalls Unscripted ‘The Tonight Show’ Altercation With Burt Reynolds

More than 30 years after the shocking moment, former Double Dare host Marc Summers recalls the unscripted altercation he and Burt Reynolds had on The Tonight Show.

Recalling his 1994 appearance on the late-night talk show, Summers told PEOPLE the fight was never supposed to happen.

“I was booked for the show, and every time I was getting ready to do it, they would go long, or they put somebody else on in front of me,” he explained. “So this was a year, and after he went three segments, they came to my publicist and said, ‘I’m sorry, we got to bump Marc again.’”

Summers’ scheduled appearance finally happened, and he ended up sitting right next to Reynolds.

“At the time, Burt Reynolds was going through a nasty divorce [with Loni Anderson], so he was supposed to do two segments,” the former game show host said. “I was going to be segment three and Carrot Top was going to be segment four. Well, Burt was so peculiar that night, but entertaining, they kept him for one extra segment.”

During the interview, Summers pointed out that Reynolds started making fun of him. Things took a turn when Summers called himself a “neatness fanatic.”

“He said, ‘Who told you you were a neatness fanatic?’ and I said, ‘My wife did,’ and then I said, ‘and by the way, I’m still married,’” Summers continued. “Well, the whole audience went, ‘Whoa,’ and he had a glass of water, and he poured it in my crotch. And then I tried to counteract that and take the water and pour it in his crotch, and he straight-armed me, and he hit me in the face with the cup.”

Leno added to the situation by bringing out pies to the stage.

“All hell broke loose after that; Jay brought out some pies, and we got into a massive pie fight,” Summers said. “It was not fixed. Trust me. I was fighting for my life on that show, and, yeah, this is what happened. We got into a pie fight. Dave Letterman was beating Jay every night; that’s the first night that Jay tied Letterman, and, yeah, it was a night I’ll never forget.”

After calling Reynolds “very aggressive,” during the situation, Summers said, “When he hit me, he tried to hit me extremely hard, and, by the way, he did. He didn’t hurt me, but, yeah, for a grown man…”

Although the onstage altercation led to years of resentment, Summers said he sympathized with Reynolds when the late actor died in 2018.

“The thing that’s sad to me, ‘cause I was on Win, Lose or Draw, a show that he was executive producer of, many, many times, but we never crossed paths,” Summers pointed out. “And here was a guy who was the top box office star globally for like five years, and when he passed away, he really didn’t have much money left. And you kind of wonder what happened.”

Summers then questioned Reynolds’ misfortunes by asking, “Was it divorces? Was it just mismanagement? Who knows? The entertainment world is a tough one, and the one thing I learned early on is save your money.”