Netflix Had a Plan If Alex Honnold Fell and Died During Live Skyscraper Climb

Alex Honnold risked his life to try and free solo climb Taipei 101 live on Netflix, and the streaming service was prepared in the event that the veteran climber died in the process.

As Elle Duncan, who hosted Skyscraper Live on Saturday, January 24, told it on the "Awful Announcing" podcast, someone on the crew handed her a notecard of what to say if Honnold, 40, fell and died while attempting to climb the 101-story skyscraper.

"There's something to be said when five minutes before you go on air, someone slides you a card of what you're gonna say if a person falls off the building and dies," Duncan explained on the Thursday, January 29, episode. "That was certainly not an experience I had ever had before."

Netflix also aired Honnold's attempt on a 10-second delay so that the broadcast could cut away if disaster struck. (Coincidentally - or not - it would take the average human about 10.2 seconds to free fall from the top of Taipei 101 with minimal air resistance, according to The Hollywood Reporter.)

"I had a card on my lap that basically was like, ‘We've experienced a fall and we're going to get off air now and we will update you as soon as we can on Alex's condition,'" Duncan, 42, revealed. "They were going to cut away. We were on a delay. They were going to cut away to something very wide so obviously we wouldn't watch him fall. Then I was going to pop on camera and I was going to make that statement, then we were going to get off air."

Though Duncan is now the only person who has ever served as a play-by-play voice for someone free solo climbing a skyscraper, she took plenty of heat from viewers on social media. She's read the comments, including those who said she talked over some of the drama, and took the criticism in stride.

"I watched it back, and I was like, ‘I was at a 10,'" she said. "I was very anxious, and I think that it showed in a way that I didn't feel like when I was doing it."

She added, "My tone probably didn't match some of those moments, and that I didn't need to sell the drama. I went back and watched it, and I was like, ‘The drama is this dude's doing this crazy thing, like, look at these incredible images' - that's really all that I need. I didn't need to paint that picture, but I didn't know that going in."

Duncan did her best to prepare, even traveling to Honnold's home before the climb to learn more about him. She joked that she didn't even "see Taiwan" while she was there because she was in meetings and doing everything she could to prepare for the broadcast.

But there were too many unknowns for Duncan to feel completely comfortable. The night before, she asked Honnold whether he would want to talk to her during the climb. Not even Honnold could answer that - he had never free soloed in front of anyone before, let alone done so in front of a global audience.

"This was a test case. There was no blueprint," she said. "Nobody has ever narrated or hosted a desk where someone is climbing a building and could literally fall to their death at any second."

Duncan also knows that the event wasn't about her - it was about Honnold and the historic feat he was attempting.

"Ultimately the goal of what can you take away from watching Alex Honnold climb, which is that as he said, ‘Life is finite,' and if you have an opportunity in your life to do something that scares you and challenges you and pushes you, then you should do it, because we have so little time," she said. "That, to me, was a success. I think we showed all that, we showed who Alex was."

US Weekly

This story was originally published January 29, 2026 at 1:49 PM.