Pink shares 'stupid' reason she hasn't done Broadway yet

NEW YORK – Pink knows exactly what you’re thinking.

The Grammy winner, known for her mind-blowing aerial stunts, is set to host the Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall June 7 (8 ET/5 PT on CBS and streaming on Paramount+). With one of her favorite new shows, vampire musical “The Lost Boys,” also set to perform, surely she plans to take flight with the headbanging bloodsuckers?

“I’m not flying with vampires,” she assures us with a smirk amid a flurry of interviews at Top of the Rock. That said, “I’m doing some things. My first thing was, of course, everyone’s going to expect to see me fly, and what can we do at Radio City? I literally walk into every building and I'm like: 'Where can I hang from? What's strong enough? What do we test out first?’ ”

Pink nearly starred on Broadway in this Tony-winning musical

Pink (real name Alecia Moore) may not seem like an obvious choice to host the Tony Awards, which honor Broadway’s best and have been emceed by theater veterans Cynthia Erivo, Ariana DeBose and James Corden. But two long-running shows use Pink’s songs: the jukebox musicals “& Juliet” and “Moulin Rouge!” And growing up in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, she remembers her ER nurse mother would save up money so they could get dressed up, go to dinner and see a show together.

“It was my favorite night with my mom every year,” says Moore, 46. “We would go see 'Phantom of the Opera,' 'Les Mis,' 'La Cage aux Folles.’ I wanted to be Cosette by the time I was 9 or I wasn't going to be cute anymore, and I remember the chandelier falling in 'Phantom.’ I just love theater and live performance. It definitely shaped what I do as Pink.”

The pop star has flirted with the idea of performing on the Main Stem before. Just over a decade ago, she got an offer to star in the Broadway production of rock musical “Hedwig and the Angry Inch," for which Neil Patrick Harris won a Tony Award.

"I once had the opportunity to be the first female Hedwig, and I should have done it," she says. "But it was 10 years ago, and I was probably in Germany on tour. There's been a lot of opportunities, but also, I’m very codependent” – or as her therapist tells her, “attached.”

“I'm very attached with my kids,” says Moore, who shares daughter Willow, 15, and son Jameson, 9, with her husband, former motocross racer Carey Hart. “They come with me on tour and we travel together. I cannot imagine eight shows a week where I'm not telling them what to do or finding their iPad for them. I mean, it’s a stupid answer, but it is my truth! It's a real commitment."

And who knows? She still might step into Hedwig’s platform heels one day.

"Wouldn’t that be amazing?" Moore says with a grin. "The 80-year-old Hedwig when my kids are in college.”

After hosting the Tony Awards, could daytime TV be next for Pink?

Right now, Pink is more focused on helping Willow achieve her own Broadway dreams. Willow has sung onstage and even recorded with her mom many times through the years, and the family recently moved to New York so she can continue studying acting and dance as well. Eventually, Willow hopes to enroll in the theater program at either Carnegie Mellon University or the University of Michigan.

“She’s amazing,” Moore marvels. “She's more talented than I ever was. I think she's got a shot; she's in this for the long haul. She also gets straight A-pluses, which makes me wonder, 'Is she my daughter?' "

When Pink stepped in to guest-host “The Kelly Clarkson Show” in March, Willow appeared in a variety of segments, interviewing cast members from Broadway’s “Ragtime” and “Maybe Happy Ending,” and duetting with her mom on a ballad from “The Outsiders.”

Pink even asked her daughter to perform together on the Tony Awards, but “she's really hung up on this whole nepo baby thing,” Moore quips. “It's a shame."

Jokes aside, Pink says that seeing Willow’s respect and dedication to theater has been inspiring as she prepares to host the Tonys, which will open with a 7½-minute number featuring nearly 170 people.

Willow “works her butt off,” Moore says. “She is all business and I'm kind of a jokester, so I've learned to be more serious and to pay attention when people are teaching you things. … I actually got to go back to my own life and rehearse for a couple of shows. My choreographer was like, 'Why are you being so serious?' I was like: 'This is the new me now! I'm serious in rehearsals!’ ”

Although mother and daughter both live and breathe Broadway, the boys of the family haven’t been converted quite yet.

“Carey likes dirt," Moore says, laughing. "If there's a play called 'Dirt,' he's gonna love it. Jameson is a theater kid at heart ‒ he just doesn't know it yet. He's very funny and he can sing his little butt off,” but he tends to prefer “Stevie Wonder runs” over show tunes.

Between the Tony Awards and her weeklong stint hosting “The Kelly Clarkson Show,” there has been rampant speculation online that Pink may be preparing to take Clarkson’s seat when she leaves the daytime talk show later this summer. But the charismatic singer waves off any suggestion that she’s itching to host more TV in the future.

"No, I don't know what I'm doing!" Moore says good-naturedly. "I'm just here to be Kermit the Frog and celebrate everybody else."