Skyscraper Live

The headset died. The climb did not.

Halfway up Taipei 101, Alex Honnold told Elle Duncan his comms were dropping out. Deadline reported the headset dying in stretches while he kept moving through the Slabs, the Bamboo Boxes, and the Tower. After the balconies he said he was trying to pace himself, slow and steady, taking the brunt of the wind on a corner. Early on the Tower he said, "You know what? I'm kind of tired," then campus-climbed with arms only.

He still topped out in a little over 90 minutes. Deadline called it just over an hour and thirty minutes and the tallest urban free solo on record. The Daily Beast timed the summit at 1 hour, 31 minutes, and 40 seconds on the 1,667-foot steel-and-glass face. He took a selfie on the sphere, waved, then put on a neon green harness to come down and hug Sanni McCandless. They shouted out their two young children.

Rain first. Ten seconds of insurance second.

Netflix wanted Friday, January 23, 2026. Rain slicked the building. Tudum's editor note says the live event moved to Saturday, January 24 at 8 p.m. ET, 5 p.m. PT. Deadline said the postponement landed on the Pacific evening because of poor weather. The Daily Beast said the Friday show was called off about 30 minutes before start.

A person with knowledge of production told The Hollywood Reporter the feed would run on a 10-second delay, Netflix's first live event outside the United States. Taipei 101 has 101 floors. THR noted a free fall from 1,667 feet is about 10.2 seconds. Honnold had no harness, rope, or net for the climb. He had wanted the tower for more than a decade. "I've hoped to have the opportunity to climb it since then."

Brandon Riegg, Netflix VP of nonfiction series and sports, sold it as a 2026 kickoff people would talk about as it happened. "Watching Alex Honnold free climb Taipei 101 will be an adrenaline-inducing spectacle that you can't look away from. Everyone will be talking about it as it happens." Hosts and panelists were Elle Duncan, Emily Harrington, Mark Rober, Pete Woods, and Seth Rollins. Plimsoll Productions made it. Al Berman is showrunner. Joe DeMaio directed. Honnold is an executive producer.

Honnold had already told CNN the TV question that would not go away. Deadline reprinted it. "Everyone's like, 'Cool, this is gonna be great for TV.' And then they're like, 'But how do we make it safe?' And you're like, 'Well, the whole point is that it's fundamentally not safe.' I feel that it is very safe, and it's made safe through preparation and through training and through rehearsal. Basically you just can't make it safe in a way that, like, a network executive wants you to."

Baby wipes on a 101-floor route.

After the climb he sounded almost bored by the myth. Tudum recorded him wanting the day to feel relatively normal. The biggest city difference, he said, was feeling self-conscious getting off the ground, waiting for a crosswalk light, then jumping onto the wall. Once climbing, "I'm just climbing." At the spire he said, "What a view! It's incredible!" and "Don't fall off the spire" because it was very windy.

THR later ran the production gossip. 19 camera sources, two drones, a helicopter, and a 400-meter free-hanging cable dolly that rigger Waldo Etherington called probably the longest ever. The special drew 6.2 million viewers in the first two days. James Smith of Plimsoll said he had more safety meetings than creative meetings. Secret Compass ran risk. An exclusion zone sat at the base. Honnold refused to empty the offices along the route. "No, it'd be fun to have people in there." Crews had already wiped New Year's fireworks residue off the holds with towels and baby wipes after practice climbs felt grimy.

The official trailer still says the quiet part. If you fall, you die.