Ryan Seacrest says he hopes for ‘nothing more’ than to host ‘Wheel of Fortune’ with Vanna White in wide-ranging interview

Seacrest discussed the new job, his foundation, lifestyle habits, and more during an interview at Fortune’s Impact Initiative conference with CEO Alan Murray. The conference was hosted in Seacrest’s hometown of Atlanta.

Following his departure from Live with Kelly and Ryan earlier this year, it was announced that Seacrest would replace Pat Sajak, who has been the host of Wheel of Fortune since 1981. Vanna White is reportedly still negotiating her contract to return to the show.

Watch the video interview or read the transcript below.

Alan Murray: Ryan, thank you so much for being here.

Ryan Seacrest: Alan, no pressure.

Alan Murray: We didn’t plan that.

Ryan Seacrest: I’m very happy to be interviewed and not having to ask the questions.

Alan Murray: And I’m happy to do it. I gotta tell you, I have done hundreds of interviews at these Fortune events. This is the first time I’ve had to do an interview in front of the interviewees’ mother.

Ryan Seacrest: Well.

Alan Murray: That is a particular pressure tactic.

Ryan Seacrest: By the way, bragger about all those interviews. But mother. Okay.

Alan Murray: Would you like to stand up?

Ryan Seacrest: Are you going to chime in? Connie, my mom, is here. She…

Alan Murray: It’s, like, I can’t ask you a tough question.

Ryan Seacrest: Sure you can. She’ll answer them.

Alan Murray: Well, we can put a chair up here for you.

Ryan Seacrest: No, no, no. She had her hair done, but she’s fine right there. You look beautiful, mom. Good to see you. My parents live here, so.

Alan Murray: Well, it’s great to have you here. We have a lot of questions about this guy, which we’ll get to in a minute. Yeah, thank you. But I want to start with Seacrest Studios, which Tom introduced to his son, but got an experience of it. What is it? And why did you do it?

Ryan Seacrest: So through my work, I had spent time in different children’s hospitals around the country. And after I would visit some of the patients, I’d spend time with their parents. And I would ask them questions. And the story I heard most often was, “My son, my daughter run out of things to do or things to look forward to. Or reasons to get up out of their bed and even walk down the hallway.” And as I left, it really resonated with me that potentially there is an idea here that we could create a nucleus. A heartbeat. A real destination within inside the walls of the hospital. And then I asked myself the question, “What if?

And is it possible for kids at some point to actually look forward to coming to receive treatment at a hospital? And what would draw that excitement out of them?” So the idea is, I talked with my mom, my dad and my sister that night at dinner, we were all together. The idea was to build multimedia content, creative spaces inside children’s hospitals that are fishbowls where the patients and their families can come to interact and really come alive inside the hospital.

Alan Murray: It’s a great idea. And I want to go into it in a little more depth. But before I do, I mean, you do and have for a long time done a five hour radio talk show every day. You were doing Kelly and Ryan every day. You’ve been doing American Idol for 21 years. Sounds like you needed something to do. Why?Why add this?

Ryan Seacrest: Those things are important. But this is really important. This is something that is…It’s very meaningful to me to hear and see the stories from parents, from patients. There’s a story from a Dallas patient. There was a young girl who was in the hospital, and she was working on her self confidence. And she really wanted to be a part of the Seacrest Studios. But she didn’t want to be seen. She didn’t feel good about herself.

So through the technology that we have inside these studios, which are live broadcast studios, we created an avatar for her. And she developed this personality through her avatar. Well, after she gained more and more confidence, she finally said, “I want to go in the studio. And I want to host the show.” And she became a star inside our studio, at the Dallas Seacrest Studio in the hospital there.

Alan Murray: I think we have a picture of the studio. Maybe we… yeah, there you go. And so these are in the hospital?

Ryan Seacrest: So these are mainly in the lobby, in the atrium of the hospitals. And if you think about any… If you think about GMA in the morning, or you think about a soundstage, where you think about a green screen, or radio studio, a podcast studio. I know you do a podcast. All of those capabilities can be executed inside these studios. And all of the content that is created inside. Hosted many times by the patients. All of that content is then broadcast into the rooms of the hospital. So the patients who are in their beds can partake in it and interact with it.

Alan Murray: Do you think it has medical effect? Health effect?

Ryan Seacrest: I definitely think it helps with the healing process. We know that it helps with the mental health of these patients when they are going through difficult things. But, you know, to have a young patient tell their mother that they wake up in the morning excited to go for treatment because they’re going to be on TV and they’re going to see their friends inside the studio. That’s why this is important to me.

Alan Murray: Yeah, yeah. And, by the way, it’s not just the studio. Can we pull up the other picture? You bring in people?

Ryan Seacrest: It’s Russell and Ciara? Yeah.

Alan Murray: Yeah, they get to meet people that the rest of us don’t get to meet. I mean, that’s part of the magic, right?

Ryan Seacrest: It is. Just 10 days ago, Ed Sheeran stopped by. And these celebrities just do it. Ed Sheeran came by our studio in Colorado.

Alan Murray: Did he play?

Ryan Seacrest:
He played two songs: Bad Habits and Perfect. He sang with the kids, he let them ask every single…And they’re great at creative questions.I mean, they asked what we want to know. And they’re not shy about it. And so they had a chance to interact with him.

Taylor Swift opened our national studio with us, The Jonas Brothers have come through recently.

And that electricity, even the anticipation of these celebrities coming through, that’s part of the programming as well. It’s part of the excitement. Then, of course, there’s the payoff. Then there’s the after effect of talking about it and sharing those stories with other patients.

Alan Murray: But I want to go back to this question of why, on top of everything else that you do, did you do this? I mean, everybody in this room, you got a bunch of very busy corporate executives sitting in this room. They all have very busy lives.

Ryan Seacrest: I’ll talk faster.

Alan Murray: Yeah. We are in Atlanta, it’s okay. You can say that.

Ryan Seacrest: My home town, careful.

Alan Murray: They all struggle with work-life balance. You don’t struggle with work-life balance. You have none. You can’t possibly have any. I mean, five hours a day doing the radio show?

Ryan Seacrest:
You know, I really do. I segment my days to be very heavy and efficient, in terms of production. I am very focused on what meetings are most important to have. For me, when I’m in a meeting, it’s very efficient.

And when there are phone calls or conference calls that we need to have, I strategically take those when I’m in transit to another job. So that I know in my headspace that between, you know, by 4 o’clock, I’ve got free space to exercise, to take a walk, to play with my dog, to eat dinner.

But the front end of it is efficiently and strategically plain.

Alan Murray: You ever just say, “I got to take the next five days off, I’m sorry. You know, I’m checking out.”?

Ryan Seacrest:
I say I want to take two weeks off. I mean, and I do. You know, over the summer, I get my breaks and I take that time. It’s important time.

Alan Murray: See, this is where I want your mother on the stage. I mean, like, was he always like this Always.

You know, the other thing I’ve always this. I wondered this for a long time. Your business, there are people who want to be famous. They’re talent. And there are people who want to get rich, who want to be moguls. You’re doing both. You’re doing both at the same time. Did you set out to do that?

Ryan Seacrest:
Don’t listen.

Alan Murray: Did you set out? Did he know he wanted this? I really would rather.

Ryan Seacrest:
Next year.

Alan Murray: Did you always want to do both? She says yes.

Ryan Seacrest: I always wanted to be able to go out for dinner and afford to have what I wanted on the menu. Even when I was a little kid. I thought that was cool. We would go…When I was…When I would do well in school, we’d go to La Paz Mexican restaurant or Dos Amigos in Sandy Springs and I thought, “Wow, this is living. Like, three cheese enchiladas? I want three cheese enchiladas with two sauces on the side. Like, that’s what I want in life.” You laugh, but…

Alan Murray: I think you have achieved that.

Ryan Seacrest: I looked at Dick Clark, I looked at Merv Griffin, I looked at these legends in broadcasting who were not only in front of the camera, they were also behind the camera. They also understood the dynamics of production and ownership and having assets as well. And I, I studied that. And I wanted to do that.

Alan Murray: Yeah, something we were talking about earlier that is another thing everyone in this room struggles with. Because these are people who are really trying to drive companies to social purpose, to do social good. And the problem that they’ve faced in the last couple of years is they’re getting pulled into a political ring that they don’t want to be in. You’ve done an amazing job in your career. You talk to everybody about everything all day long. But you’ve done an amazing job staying out of politics. How do you do that? Why do you do that? Who taught you to do that?

Ryan Seacrest: Well, the programs that I front and the programs that I have produced in the past are general, broad, mainstream programs that appeal to large audiences and we want everybody to tune in. We want all ages to feel welcome. We want all ages to feel included.

I’m thinking of the radio show that I do in the morning, which is broadcast back to Los Angeles on a station called KIIS-FM.

You know, we look at the ratings from, you know, 6+, right? You know, we’re trying to make sure that this is a destination and this is a place that when you’re commuting with your kids in the car, you will hear a conversation that you’ll be interested in that they will also not be turned off by.

Or there will be nothing that is offensive to them or have to be explained to them about a conversation that we’re having. So I do look through that lens of broad appeal and broad programming.

Alan Murray: I mean, what if someone calls up and wants to talk about, you know, should people be able to play sports in a gender different than the one they were born in? I mean, all the controversial topics that everybody’s getting pulled into every day. Do you screen those out?

Ryan Seacrest: I don’t screen them out. That’s probably a caller that wouldn’t call into our show because if they’re not familiar… If they’re familiar with it, they know it’s not our show. I mean, we are talking to Doja Cat and, this morning, Demi Lovato. You know, it’s like…And if any of those conversations come up with some of those artists, then they are fluid and they happen. But we do want everybody to feel welcome and comfortable and appeal to large audiences.

Alan Murray: I want to…If anyone else has questions here, we do have microphones if somebody…I have 100 questions.

Ryan Seacrest: Mother? Yeah.

Alan Murray: Yeah, go ahead. Is there…

Ryan Seacrest: Anybody?

Alan Murray: There been a question you’ve been dying to ask him?

Ryan Seacrest: Yes, ma’am.

Audience member: I just want to know if there was a book that changed your life for…I don’t want to say your favorite book, but a book that you gift most often or a couple books?

Alan Murray: Great question, yeah. That narrow it in too much?

Ryan Seacrest: I just started reading… Well, so, one I’ve fallen in love with recently, which is maybe a little bit bizarre, is “Unreasonable Hospitality.” It’s this book about 11 Madison Park and the story of it.

And exceeding expectation when it comes to entertaining people or hosting people or being hospitable. And I see myself as someone that is in the hospitality business. And so that’s a book that I really gravitated towards. And the other one we were talking about backstage is “[The] Second Mountain” by David Brooks. I love that book, too.

Alan Murray: Yeah.

Ryan Seacrest: Have you read [The] Second Mountain? You have.

Alan Murray: You’re in favor of that?

Ryan Seacrest: I heard that.

Alan Murray: Yes. You have a quite a question right here.

Ryan Seacrest: Yes.

Audience member: How do you manage your energy?

Ryan Seacrest: Not well. Have I always been like that? I guess so. Yeah. I fortunately, I wake up with energy. I absolutely love the opportunities that are in front of me. I like people. I enjoy it when someone says, “Do you mind if like?” I mean, someone said to me, “I’m so sorry to bother you for a selfie.” I’m happy. Like, I love that. You know.

Alan Murray: Do you sleep? How many hours do you sleep at night?

Ryan Seacrest: I sleep well.

Alan Murray: You do?

Ryan Seacrest: Yeah. I don’t know how many hours I get. My ring is off right now. But yeah, I sleep…I sleep well. I’m tired by the time I go to bed. And then I…

Alan Murray: How about diet? What kind of a diet do you?

Ryan Seacrest: I eat a plant-based diet. I don’t eat…

Alan Murray: No meat?

Ryan Seacrest: I eat a little bit of meat when I’m traveling. If it’s a great place, and it’s authentic to the region, I’ll have something. But generally fish and a plant-based diet. And I don’t have breakfast in the morning, but I do have coffee.

Alan Murray:
Question back here.

Audience member: My name is Carmen. And I wanted to ask because impact, when you think about impact, many people think it’s always good. But have you gone through a tough moment that was decision-making in your life and changed you for the better? And changed through that time by going through that time? You really ended up in a good place.

Ryan Seacrest: Well, I mean, I think that for me, fortunately, I’ve known what I wanted at a very young age. And I’ve had a very ferocious appetite to try and achieve that. And I’ve been focused on that.

But one of the most difficult things for me, just in terms of career we’re talking about here, was at the beginning when I was at the University of Georgia here. And I come from a very traditional family. My father is here. He’s a lawyer. My parents been married for…

Alan Murray: I’m sorry, not to mention your father. I was focused on your mother. That’s just the thing we guys do.

Ryan Seacrest:
He got his hair done today, too. And you’ve been married 53 years? Yeah. And so when I was at…

Alan Murray: That’s pretty good, too.

Ryan Seacrest: Not married. Another topic.

Alan Murray: And you’re 54?

Ryan Seacrest: 48. But, to go back to your question, I was at the university. I knew that traditionally, in my head, you’re supposed to go to school, get your degree, get your job. But I was losing sleep at school because I wanted to so badly drop out and pursue my dream in Los Angeles. But I didn’t have a contact. I didn’t know how or who or really what I was going to do. But I knew if I didn’t try and do it, I would regret that for the rest of my life.

So, I packed up my little Honda Prelude, I drove down to Atlanta from Athens and I told my mom and dad, “I’m dropping out of the University of Georgia. I’m gonna go pursue this.” And I said, “I really hope that you will support me, but I want you to know no matter what, I’m going to do it.” And it was a very difficult conversation.

Alan Murray: You guys ever doubt he would succeed? No.

Ryan Seacrest: Sure, now you say that. That was a very difficult, at 19 years old, moment for me.

Alan Murray: I’ve saved the really big question for last. Are you going to keep Vanna White?

Ryan Seacrest: Well, so I am going to… I’m fortunate enough to take over for the legendary Pat Sajak.

Alan Murray: Yeah.

Ryan Seacrest: Next year, which I am so… My energy’s gonna go up, sir, on that. I’m telling you. I have been the biggest fan of that show forever. I love Vanna White. I’ve known Vanna for a long time. We sat in important places next to each other. And I hope for nothing more than to be able to walk out on that stage and host with her.

Alan Murray: That’s cool. So I have a present for you. You don’t know about this.

Ryan Seacrest: Okay.

Alan Murray: This is the very first issue of Fortune Magazine. February 1930.

Ryan Seacrest: You were not there then?

Alan Murray: I was not the CEO at that time.

Ryan Seacrest: Had to get you back.

Alan Murray: February 1930. You know what this is? Yes? That is the Wheel of Fortune.

Ryan Seacrest: Is it really?

Alan Murray: That is the first cover. The first cover of Fortune Magazine. So we’re kind of, like, brothers. I’ll call her mom.

Ryan Seacrest: That’s so funny. I thought this was, like, from Six Flags. I was like, “Oh, that’s the Ferris wheel at Six Flags.” That’s very kind. Thank you very much.

Alan Murray: You can put that in one of your homes.

Ryan Seacrest: By the way, the subscription annual. You know what it was?

Alan Murray: What?

Ryan Seacrest: $10 a year.

Alan Murray: You can do it.

Ryan Seacrest: Yeah.

Alan Murray: Well anyway, thank you so much. Very inspiring what you do. Really great to have you with us.

Ryan Seacrest: Thanks, man. Appreciate it.