Ariana DeBose's viral 2023 Tonys moment, when she jumps off of a full flight of stairs mid-dance, was rehearsed...but not the way she ended up doing it. As she told Seth Meyers on her November 15 appearance on his late night show, "that jump off the stairs wasn't really rehearsed that way." She goes on to explain that it was rehearsed with her jumping backwards into her dance partner's arms, but instead, DeBose dove quite literally headfirst, jumping forward, her body completely horizontal, then flipping onto her back mid-air. "I had so much adrenaline in my body, I just said, 'boom!,'" she told Meyers.

While on the topic of the Tony Awards, DeBose also recounted her memories of the 2016 Tonys, which she fondly dubbed the "Hamil-Tony party"—the year Hamilton swept the awards. Her mother accompanied her to the Tony Awards as well as the after-parties. "I looked over, and she was cutting a rug with Common!" DeBose shares. "I was like, 'Mom, did you just hit on Common?'"

To see DeBose's full interview with Meyers, see the video above.