Carson Daly opens up about the Woodstock ’99 disaster and admits ‘I thought I was going to die’ (Photo: Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)
Carson Daly thought he was going to “die” at Woodstock ’99.
The music festival that went wrong is the subject of another documentary. The three-part Netflix streamer, aptly titled Trainwreck: Woodstock ’99, follows the chaos in Rome, NY over two decades ago. Daly said since the document came out he’s had a ton of questions about how he’s been during that time hosting MTV’s TRL, so he’s responded.
“All I can say is, I thought I was going to die,” said Daly, who now covers entertainment news on the Today show. “It started off great, TRL Live from the side of the main stage interviewing all the bands (like Jay from Jamiroquai) and then having bottles, rocks, lighters and everything thrown at them. It got insane fast.”
Daly, who included photos of things being thrown at him, said by nightfall as Limp Bizkit played “Break Stuff” with Fred Durst, “the prisoners officially ran the prison,” referring to the angry crowd. His MTV boss told the staff and crew backstage, “‘We can no longer guarantee your safety, it’s time to go!’ I remember driving recklessly through corn fields in a production truck to get to safety.”
He called the whole thing “so crazy and now fuzzy” and said he felt like he was “in another country during a military conflict”.
Daly, now a father of four, concluded: “I have so many fun memories from that time, this wasn’t one of them. Needless to say, I didn’t take the family to Rome, NY for a vacation. “
The documentary, directed by Jamie Crawford, explores how the celebration, with its message of peace for love, was the opposite of the 1969 original. It was toxic on many levels – from mud on the site that was actually human waste, to lots of sexual assault. There were further acts of violence, looting, vandalism and fires.
Spin reported at the time that festival-goers, fueled by anger at the conditions but also just playing, berated Daly with gay slurs and derogatory sexual remarks about his ex-girlfriend Jennifer Love Hewitt. One person “threw a cup of water in Daly’s face and the harried VJ muttered, ‘Just tell me man that wasn’t your pee.'” Daly’s face was the target of many overpriced plastic water bottles.
The story goes on
Earlier this week, WWE wrestler Mike “The Miz” Mizanin confirmed he was part of the crowd after footage of him shirtless and screaming “Woodstock ’99, Baby” at the camera was included in the document.
“Before The Real World, 18-year-old Mike knew how to find the camera. Never knew this footage existed had to do a double take,” he wrote on Instagram, seeming just as surprised as the attentive viewers who spotted him.
Daly took part in the HBO Max documentary Woodstock 99: Peace, Love and Rage 2021 last year. He discussed it on Today at the time, saying the festival has been dubbed “the day the ’90s died”. He continued, “Before the Fyre Festival debacle,” that other colossal mess that landed organizer Billy McFarland in jail, “Woodstock ’99 was known as one of the biggest festival failures of all time.”