William Shatner has revealed he once shat his pants on stage on the opening night of his one-man show. In his new book, “Boldly Go,” the “Star Trek” actor opened up about needing to relieve his bowels while performing “Shatner’s World.” Unfortunately, he was unable to make it to the toilet on time.
- Shatner was dealing with a stomach bug on the opening night of his show. In an excerpt from the book shared by Unilad, the 91-year-old was blunt about what happened. “The first performance of Shatner’s World was an experience the likes of which I had never before encountered. Earlier in the day, I had woken up in all sorts of, shall we say, gastrointestinal distress. I was losing fluids and worse from every part of my body and was barely even able to imbibe water,” he shared. Uh oh, this sounds like trouble.
- He managed to make it on stage that night. Because the show must go on, Shatner didn’t cancel the performance and decided to go through with the show. “Somehow, by the evening, I was able to pull myself together enough to physically get to the theatre, but I was not entirely sure I’d be able to go onstage. This was opening night. It was a packed house. The critics were waiting to write their reviews. What was I supposed to do?” he recalled. “Boldly, I took my place on the stage and attacked the material with panache. The response was terrific; the audience was eating it up. Then, about halfway through the show, disaster struck. In my pants.”
- William Shatner shat his pants. There’s no other way to put it. However, what made it worse was that he was going to have to deal with the issue before continuing with the show. “‘Hold up,’ I told the audience. “‘We seem to have a small technical difficulty. Please bear with us; I’ll be right back.’ I raced off the stage and up the stairs to my dressing room.” He added that after a “quick shower and a change of underwear,” he went back onstage and finished the show.
- Thankfully, the rest of the performance went well. His stomach calmed down and his pants stayed perfectly dry. “The rest of the show went without incident. To my great satisfaction, the reviews (which were great) didn’t even mention the ‘technical difficulty’ that had paused the show for 10 minutes,” Shatner wrote. “I performed Shatner’s World on Broadway for just under a month before taking the show on a national and later international tour.” What a hero! No wonder Shatner was chosen to go to space — he’s got bravery to spare!
