When sophomore Gavin Hubner received an email invitation to appear on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” for his yo-yo skills, he at first thought it was fake. 

“I actually replied to it with a very sarcastic comment, and they still responded because Jimmy was very adamant about who he wanted to pick for certain roles,” Hubner said. 

Hubner, who has been yo-yoing since fifth grade, was on the “Tonight” show for approximately two minutes on Friday, Nov. 3. He performed using the same choreography and music as he did for his most viral Tik Tok video, which gained 1.3 million views.

The video — which shows Hubner yo-yoing to the beat of Billie Eilish’s song “Bad Guy” — grabbed the attention of Jimmy Fallon’s team, who initially contacted Hubner back in February to have him on the show. 

“I was put in a pool of a lot of people that they choose to have on the segment called, ‘Show Me Something Good,’ which is where they just take random people with unique talents and kind of show them off,” Hubner said. “I was not actually chosen for the first round that I was entered into.” 

Hubner said Fallon’s team reached out again in October to have him on the show. 

“Jimmy is very spontaneous and decides what he wants in the moment and how he wants the show to be that particular night,” Hubner said. “There’s not really a rhyme or reason to it.”

The Tonight Show paid for all of his travel expenses, including the hotel, plane tickets, and a limo ride to and from the airport, according to Hubner. 

“I stayed at a hotel called ‘The Jewel,’” Hubner said. “It had a balcony. It was sick.”

Hubner said he arrived on set around 1 p.m., and filming wrapped up around 6 p.m. The show aired later that night at 11:30 p.m, instead of later that week, which is different from other late night shows, according to Hubner.

“I was on camera for two minutes,” Hubner said. “Jimmy asked me questions about yo-yoing for about one minute, and then the next 45 seconds after that was yo-yoing and getting a reaction from the audience.”

In the video on YouTube, Fallon praised Hubner’s performance. 

“Dude that spinning? That’s rad,” Fallon said. “That was flawless.”

Hubner said Jack Antonoff, Taylor Swift’s producer, was there. 

Sophomore Hanna Cobia, Hubner’s girlfriend, said she was present when he got the email in February inviting him on the show. 

“Once we figured out it wasn’t a scam, he was super excited,” Cobia said.

Cobia said her family sent her messages after Hubner’s performance, complimenting him on the TV appearance. 

“I told my parents about it, and they went and told my whole family about it,” Cobia said. “Afterwards I got so many texts from cousins, aunts, and uncles and they kept saying ‘Gavin’s so poised, Gavin speaks really well on TV, Gavin did such a good job.’” 

Sophomore and Hubner’s Delta Tau Delta fraternity brother Noah Lobue watched the show when it aired. 

“It was so surreal seeing someone I consider one of my brothers getting to show off for the entire country,” Lobue said. “Gavin is too good at his craft for the world not to know, and I’m so insanely proud that he killed it on one of the biggest stages in entertainment.”