Simu Liu claims he only knew 5 minutes before hosting ‘Kelly Clarkson Show’

Simu Liu stepped in as guest host for The Kelly Clarkson Show on Monday, but the Last Breath star claimed he only had a last-minute warning that he was taking over for Kelly Clarkson.

“I do have a confession to make — I am not Kelly Clarkson,” Liu said. “I know this may shock many of you. But Kelly actually isn’t able to make it today. We’re sending her our very best… I did not know that I was doing this until about five minutes ago when I arrived here to promote my new movie, Last Breath.”

After urging the audience to check it out because “it’s a cool film,” Liu continued. “So I’m here now, and look, I’m not one to back down from a challenge, okay? And I did host the show about three years ago. It was a great experience.”

Watch Liu’s intro in the video below:

A source tells Entertainment Weekly that Clarkson is not sick, but would not give further details about why she missed Monday’s show.

Liu currently stars in Last Breath, a dramatic thriller based on the real story in director Alex Parkinson’s 2019 documentary about real-life saturation diver Chris Lemons (played by Finn Cole), who earns his living repairing and maintaining offshore oil rigs and pipelines on the ocean’s floor. In 2012, while Lemons was 330 feet underwater, the support vessel above him suffered a systems failure during a violent storm. The boat drifted from its position, dragging Lemons and his diving bell along with it. As the ship moved, Lemons’ umbilical cable snapped, leaving him stranded alone on the ocean floor without heat or light — and only five minutes of emergency oxygen.

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Despite the impossible odds, Lemons survived for more than 30 minutes without oxygen as the crew on the surface worked to fix the onboard computers. Once they got the diving bell back in position, Lemons’ fellow diver, David Yuasa (played by Liu), went back down for what he assumed was a body recovery. However, to his and fellow diver Duncan Allcock’s (Woody Harrelson) shock, Lemons regained consciousness inside the chamber. To this day, doctors can’t explain why Lemons never experienced physical or mental side effects from the oxygen deprivation, and Lemons went back to work just three weeks later.

Last Breath is now playing in theaters.