Justin Hartley Says Street Fight Left Him and Sterling K. Brown Smelling Like Urine Before Seth Meyers’ This Is Us cameo

Justin Hartley appeared on NBC’s Late Night with Seth Meyers on October 28, 2026, and told the host that a Season 1 street fight with Sterling K. Brown left both actors smelling like urine before Meyers walked over to film his cameo. The confession turned a nine-year-old episode into a fresh viral story. It also handed CBS a free promotional boost for Tracker Season 4, which Hartley was on the show to promote. The anecdote works because it joins three durable entertainment assets in one clip: a hit broadcast drama, a legacy network phenomenon, and a late-night franchise that thrives on unscripted backstage stories.

The Late Night Confession That Broke the Story Open

Hartley’s appearance followed a familiar late-night pattern. He opened with a clip from Tracker Season 4. He discussed his producing duties. Then he shifted to a story from This Is Us that he had never told in full on a late-night couch. The host, Seth Meyers, was not a neutral listener. He was physically present in the original scene. That detail gave the segment a rare two-participant credibility.

The story centers on This Is Us Season 1, Episode 7, titled “The Best Washing Machine in the Whole World.” In the episode, Kevin Pearson (Hartley) and Randall Pearson (Sterling K. Brown) take a sibling argument from a dinner table to the streets of Manhattan. The argument becomes a physical fight. The brothers roll on the ground. Passers-by stop to watch. One of those passers-by is Seth Meyers, playing himself.

Hartley told Meyers that he and Brown shot the wrestling sequence multiple times before Meyers arrived on set. At one point during the fight, Hartley noticed a smell. He asked Brown if it was what he thought it was. Brown confirmed it. The two actors then realized that when Meyers came over to greet them on camera, he would be standing next to two men who smelled like urine. Brown, according to Hartley’s account, was not bothered. He told Hartley that Meyers was used to it and that it was no big deal. When Hartley later asked Meyers if they smelled, Meyers confirmed it and joked that actors who really work hard at the craft are going to pee themselves.

The exchange is funny because it inverts the usual hierarchy of late-night promotion. Hartley is not selling a new project with a polished anecdote. He is admitting that a celebrated dramatic scene was physically gross. Meyers is not playing the detached interviewer. He is a witness who can confirm the smell. That shared memory gives the clip a comic tension that a scripted publicity story cannot match.

Inside the Season 1 Street Fight That Made TV History

“The Best Washing Machine in the Whole World” aired on November 15, 2016. It drew 9.5 million total viewers and a 2.6 rating in the adults 18-49 demographic. It was the highest-rated show of the night. The episode arrived during This Is Us Season 1, when the NBC drama was already building a reputation for emotional intensity. The show had launched on September 20, 2016, and had quickly become a watercooler title.

The episode’s main storylines included Jack and Rebecca’s marital strain, Beth’s discovery about Rebecca’s secret, and the Kevin-Randall rivalry. The street fight was the hour’s most physical sequence. It moved the brothers’ resentment into public view. It also gave the episode a comic release valve. Dan Fogelman, the show’s creator, told Entertainment Weekly in 2016 that the production went to New York to shoot the fight on the streets. The team wanted a random celebrity encounter to feel authentic. They reached out to Seth Meyers. Fogelman said the goal was “a little comedic punch to the end of a very, very heavy scene.” Meyers agreed to do it. Sterling K. Brown and Justin Hartley flew to New York for the shoot.

The cameo landed because it used Meyers’ real television identity. He was not playing a fictional character. He was playing the host of Late Night, a familiar face who happens to walk past a fight. The scene treats celebrity as part of New York’s street texture. That choice made the moment feel spontaneous even though it was scripted and planned.

The episode also matters in the broader This Is Us timeline. It deepened the Kevin-Randall fault line that would drive storylines for six seasons. It showed that the show could mix heavy family drama with meta-comedy. And it gave the series one of its most replayed guest moments. The fact that Hartley is still telling the story in 2026 shows how deeply that shoot stayed with him.

How Seth Meyers Ended Up in a This Is Us Cameo

Meyers’ participation was not a last-minute accident. Fogelman’s team built the cameo into the New York shoot. The production wanted the fight to happen near 30 Rock, where Late Night is taped. That geography made the encounter plausible. It also made the scheduling easier. Meyers could walk out of his own building and into a This Is Us scene.

The cameo fits Meyers’ broader television profile. He has appeared as himself in scripted series before, and he has a long history of collaborating with NBC’s late-night and comedy ecosystem. This Is Us was an NBC drama. Late Night is an NBC franchise. The cameo was a cross-promotional move that cost little and generated attention. It also gave Meyers a scripted credit outside his own show.

For Hartley, the cameo created a permanent link between two phases of his career. He spent six seasons as Kevin Pearson. He now leads Tracker as Colter Shaw. Meyers sits at the intersection of both promotional paths. He can interview Hartley about Tracker and then ask about a This Is Us story that he personally witnessed. That dual role is why the October 28 segment worked as more than a standard press stop.

The Science of Shooting a Street Brawl in New York

Filming a fight on a real New York street is a logistical and physical challenge. Crews cannot control every surface. They cannot guarantee that the pavement is clean. They cannot stop pedestrians, traffic, or weather from interfering. Actors who roll on the ground absorb whatever is on the ground. Costumes, skin, and hair take on the environment.

Hartley’s story is a rare public acknowledgment of that reality. Most behind-the-scenes accounts focus on rehearsal, lighting, or choreography. Hartley focused on the smell. That detail is gross, but it is also a useful production truth. Night shoots on city streets often happen near curbs, gutters, and sidewalks that have absorbed decades of urban use. When actors repeat a physical sequence, their clothes and bodies pick up the residue. The smell becomes part of the take.

The story also explains why the actors kept going. Hartley and Brown did not stop the scene because of the smell. They noticed it, confirmed it, and kept working. Brown’s response, as Hartley recalled it, was pragmatic. He assumed Meyers would understand. That professionalism is part of the story’s appeal. The actors were not complaining. They were managing an unglamorous condition while delivering a scene that millions of viewers would watch.

From Kevin Pearson to Colter Shaw: Hartley’s Post-This Is Us Career

This Is Us ran for six seasons and 106 episodes between 2016 and 2022. It earned 39 Emmy nominations and four Emmy wins. It also earned six Golden Globe nominations and one Golden Globe win. Hartley’s performance as Kevin Pearson brought him multiple Critics Choice Award nominations for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series. He and his castmates won Screen Actors Guild Awards for ensemble performance in a drama series.

Hartley did not wait for the This Is Us finale to build his next chapter. Tracker premiered on CBS in February 2024. The series is based on Jeffery Deaver’s novel The Never Game. Hartley plays Colter Shaw, a reward-seeker who travels the country locating missing people and collecting fees. He is also an executive producer. The show is produced by 20th Television. Its executive-producing team includes Hartley, Ken Olin, Elwood Reid, Sharon Lee Watson, Alex Katsnelson, Travis Donnelly, and Ryan O’Nan. Deaver serves as a producer.

The move from a serialized family drama to a case-of-the-week procedural was deliberate. Broadcast networks want closed-ended episodes that can repeat, syndicate, and stream without requiring viewers to remember six seasons of continuity. Tracker fits that model. It also gives Hartley a lead role with production control. That combination is rare for an actor leaving a hit ensemble drama.

Why Tracker Season 4 Is a Ratings Monster

Tracker Season 4 premiered on October 4, 2026. The show airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on CBS and streams on Paramount+. Production moved from Vancouver to Los Angeles for the fourth season. The move expanded the show’s visual range and brought the production closer to the network’s Los Angeles base.

The ratings justify the investment. Nielsen Live+7 multiplatform data showed Tracker Season 4 drawing 13.86 million viewers during its premiere week. That made it the second most-watched show across traditional television and streaming platforms for that week. Only Marshals ranked higher, with 15.14 million viewers. The Season 4 premiere, “Safe Harbor,” also broke a CBS record. It became the broadcaster’s most-watched series starting after 9:45 p.m. without a direct football lead-in since the two-part Blue Bloods Season 11 finale in May 2021. “Safe Harbor” posted 7 million viewers in that measurement.

CBS averaged 8.63 million viewers during premiere week, a 14% increase compared with the same period in 2025. Tracker contributed to that gain. The network claimed seven of the top 10 shows during the week in Live+7 multiplatform viewing. Tracker was one of them. Season 4 also brought Jensen Ackles back as Russell Shaw. Episode 5, “Need to Know,” paired Colter and Russell on a case involving a kidnapped military contractor’s wife and daughter. That family storyline gives the procedural an ongoing serialized thread without abandoning the case-of-the-week structure.

The Business of Late-Night Anecdotes and Celebrity Promotion

Late-night television runs on promotional appearances. Actors arrive with a project, a clip, and a story. The best segments produce a clip that travels beyond the broadcast. Hartley’s urine story is that kind of clip. It is short, self-contained, and visually simple: two men on a couch, one host laughing, one actor explaining a gross memory. It requires no context from Tracker or This Is Us. It works as a standalone piece of content.

That portability matters. A late-night clip can live on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and news sites for days. It can drive search traffic to the actor’s current project. It can also revive interest in a legacy show. This Is Us is streaming on Paramount+ across all six seasons. Seasons 1 through 3 are also available on Hulu. A viral story about Season 1 gives viewers a reason to revisit the episode. It also gives Paramount+ and Hulu a small catalog bump without any new production spending.

The segment also benefits Meyers. His show gets a memorable guest moment. The clip circulates with his name in the headline. The story is funny without being mean. It fits the Late Night brand, which mixes celebrity access with absurd behind-the-scenes details. Hartley, Meyers, CBS, NBC, and the streaming platforms all gain something from a story that began with a bad smell on a New York sidewalk.

What the Fan Reaction Says About This Is Us’ Enduring Hold

This Is Us ended in May 2022, but its fan base has not dispersed. The show remains a streaming staple. Cast members still discuss it in interviews. Mandy Moore and other cast members have revisited the series through the That Was Us rewatch podcast. Hartley’s story adds another piece of behind-the-scenes lore to a show that fans already treat as an emotional archive.

Fan reaction to the October 28 segment focused on the contrast between the scene’s seriousness and the story’s grossness. Viewers who remember the Kevin-Randall fight as a dramatic turning point now have a comic footnote. That footnote does not diminish the scene. It makes the production process feel more human. It also reinforces the idea that This Is Us actors were willing to endure unpleasant conditions for the sake of the story.

The story has a second life because it is not scandalous. It is not a controversy about behavior, contracts, or workplace conflict. It is a story about two actors wrestling on a dirty street and realizing they smelled bad before a guest star walked over. That low-stakes specificity is why it travels. Fans do not need to take sides. They can simply laugh at the image of Seth Meyers greeting two urine-soaked TV brothers on a New York sidewalk.

The Broader Shift in Broadcast Drama Economics

The Hartley anecdote sits at the intersection of three industry trends. First, broadcast networks are leaning harder on procedural dramas with closed-ended episodes. Tracker is a textbook example. It can run for 20-plus episodes per season, repeat in syndication, and stream without forcing viewers to binge six seasons of continuity. Second, legacy dramas remain valuable catalog assets. This Is Us is no longer producing new episodes, but it still drives streaming engagement. A late-night story about Season 1 costs nothing and generates measurable attention. Third, late-night shows are cost-effective content engines. A single couch segment can produce a clip that circulates for days across multiple platforms.

These trends explain why Hartley’s story matters beyond gossip. It is a small case study in how modern entertainment promotion works. An actor with a current hit and a legacy hit can use one late-night appearance to serve both. The host gets a memorable segment. The network gets a promotional boost. The streaming platforms get a catalog signal. The audience gets a funny story about a serious scene. Everyone wins because the story is specific, verifiable, and just gross enough to be shareable.

The episode also shows how production conditions shape what viewers see. The Kevin-Randall fight reads as raw and physical on screen. Part of that rawness came from the fact that the actors were actually rolling on a New York street, take after take, in clothes that absorbed whatever was on the ground. The performance did not depend on the smell. But the smell is evidence that the performance was physical. That detail gives the scene a credibility that a soundstage fight might lack.

For Hartley, the story is a useful bookend. He spent six seasons playing a character who often seemed polished and performative. Kevin Pearson was an actor who cared about how he looked. Hartley’s late-night story is the opposite of polished. It is a reminder that television production is a job with unglamorous conditions. That contrast is why the clip works. It turns a celebrated drama into a workplace story. It turns a guest star cameo into a shared memory. And it turns a nine-year-old episode into a fresh piece of entertainment news.

Also Read: Tracker Season 4 Arrives Early: CBS Sets October Premiere For Justin Hartley’s Hit Drama

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