‘Nailed It!’ Host Nicole Byer Confesses She Made Contestant Cry With Comment About Cake

As host of Netflix’s reality series bake-off competition Nailed It!, Nicole Byer liked to keep things light and fun; however, she confessed that she once made a contestant cry after comparing her cake to “baby s***.”

The comedian appeared on Jesse Tyler Ferguson‘s podcast, Dinner’s on Me, on Tuesday, August 6, where she opened up about her time hosting the hit show from 2018 to 2022. For those unfamiliar, Nailed It! sees three amateur bakers competing to replicate complicated cakes and confectionery to win a $10,000 cash prize.

Per Entertainment Weekly, Byers told Ferguson that she once told a woman that her “frosting color looked like baby s***,” quipping in front of the cameras that the contestant’s dessert looked “like I opened a diaper.”

“It was like caramel-y green,” Byer explained, recalling the exact shade of the frosting. “It’s like specific and like stuck in my memory.”

However, things took a turn once Byer realized her joke had upset the contestant in question. “And then she started welling up and I was like, ‘Oh no,'” the Wipeout co-host shared.

Byer noted how a producer asked her to stop the tears. “I was like, ‘But you’re so pretty!’ And, um, ‘What if I cry?'”

The multi-time Emmy nominee said it was never her intention to upset people on the show. She wanted the contestants to walk away having had a good experience.

“It’s the same thing with judging,” she explained. “It’s like, yeah, this looks looks like garbage, and it tasted like s***, but let’s celebrate that, like, it baked. And, you know, it’s not burnt, and isn’t that fun?”

While Byer was nominated three times for Outstanding Host for a Reality or Competition Program for her role on Nailed It!, she never won the award. But that is a hard task, seeing as Drag Race host RuPaul has walked away with the trophy for the last eight years running.

When Ferguson asked if she ever won the Emmy, Byer said, “No! RuPaul is never gonna lose. You know when people are nominated for stuff, and they’re like, ‘Huh, humbling.’ Mmm, no, affirming.”

She continued, “It was affirming, it was like, ‘Yeah, what I’m doing is right. What I’m doing is fun. And it’s resonating with people.'”

Nailed It! is still available to watch on Netflix, but it hasn’t aired new episodes since October 2022. Back in March, Byer appeared on Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers’ podcast Las Culturistas and said she has no idea whether the show will return for an eighth season.

“You can log into Netflix and watch it. I don’t know if it’s coming back, I simply don’t know,” Byer stated. “I don’t know. I would love for it to come back.”

Nailed It!, Streaming, Netflix