Original subtitles

For Dean, it was always about Yosemite�

his cathedral,

his proving ground.

Dean was in his 30s at this point.

Physically, mentally, I think he was still

at his�his high point as a climber.

I realize the clock is ticking.

At least most people get weaker soon.

But the mind gets better with age.

Creativity becomes more and more.

I've never been the strongest climber,

but somehow, I seem to, through willpower,

pull off big climbs, creative climbs.

And now what can I do with total concentration

and single-focused desire?

At this moment, Dean still had the power to do

something really great in the Valley.

Half Dome, of course, had never been free soloed.

God, man, could El Cap ever be free soloed?

If you want to have a big impact on climbing,

you do something on El Cap or on Half Dome,

the biggest walls in the most important place.

Alex Honnold, he had these same ambitions,

and he had these same goals.

Once again, you're gonna have conflict

and competition going on.

These two guys duking it out

in the most dangerous duel you can imagine.

Who was gonna be the first to do these legendary climbs?

So amazing climbing is gonna happen,

or somebody might die.

I was hanging out in Dean's living room in Yosemite,

and there was a little black book on the table.

And I�I just picked it up, and I was like,

ooh, this is, like, Dean's tick list,

secret list of what he's training for,

what his big dreams are.

Top of the list was free solo Half Dome.

Dean's big breakout moment in the '90s

was that speed solo on Half Dome.

He was sometimes hanging on the rope and pulling on gear.

Dean hadn't yet free soloed Half Dome.

Nobody had.

There's just one blank section at the top

that he was too scared to do without a rope.

But he was working towards that goal.

It was gonna get extremely close to his limit.

He just kept practicing on it, getting more comfortable.

Like, I�I had heard

that Dean wanted to free solo Half Dome,

and it certainly seemed like something

that he maybe could have done at some point,

but he just never did it.

And I don't know, I just thought I could do it.

Well, I mean, I knew I could do it.

Honnold free soloing Half Dome,

it was arguably the greatest single achievement

in Yosemite climbing at that point.

Dean probably could have done it,

and it would have been quite a plum.

Well, Alex just came and did it.

Dean was super pissed

that Honnold had come and stolen his project.

I mean, he was, like, so territorial, you know?

Alex Honnold, when he did Half Dome,

what was your take on it?

Yeah, you know,

I had mixed feelings when�

when Alex came around, you know.

Partially I was like, fuck, I wanted that.

Another part was just like,

that's the way it goes, you know?

Alex has been real competitive with me,

trying to do things that he knows I�I want to do.

And he's�you know, he's younger.

He's real competitive.

You said, "Fuck, I wanted that."

So is there a more broad thing

you could explain how that would feel�it's like�

Oh, fuck, he knew that was my�my life's goal,

and he did it before me, because he was a competitive

kind of, like, twerp.

Dean knew there was one big climb

still to be done in Yosemite Valley�

the free solo of El Capitan.

It is always in the collective unconscious

of the Yosemite climber that free soloing El Cap

would be the ultimate of the ultimate.

3,000 feet of steep, overhanging rock climbing.

El Cap is the biggest thing

that anybody would

think of free soloing.

Dean said to me many times,

"The man who solos El Cap

will be the greatest climber of all time."

I knew that Dean wanted to free solo El Cap,

because who doesn't look at El Cap

and want to free solo it?

It's more about, like,

whether or not you're capable of it.

At some point, somebody wrote an "Outside Magazine" article

inquiring as to whether Dean or I would do it first.

Which of these two contenders will it be?

Well, I mean, I know when I read the piece,

I was like, it's gonna be me.

Looking up at El Cap, it looks so fucking scary.

Hard to believe some of the things I've done

and almost impossible to believe

what I want to do up there.

Yeah.

Feeling the competitive pull,

seeing that Alex is probably

going to free solo it before me.

Yikes.

Dean was desperate to get it before Alex,

but Potter understood that if he was gonna solo El Cap,

he knew, yeah.

Let's try freeBASE.

FreeBASE, climbing with parachute protection.

I invented that trying to figure out a way

how I could climb El Cap by myself

with a high likelihood of living.

Before taking it to El Capitan,

Dean started soloing with a BASE rig

some of these other routes in Yosemite�

hard, hard routes that had never been free soloed.

Of course, BASE jumping is illegal in Yosemite,

and he's climbing where the rangers can see him.

As long as I don't fall, it's legal.

If I do fall and have to pitch my chute,

the rangers are waiting for me down there.

But I don't care about that.

Whatever it takes, I'm gonna take it further

than anything anybody's free soloed in Yosemite.

Whoo!

Glad I had my little friend.

This whole time, Dean was prepping

for freeBASEing El Cap.

To free solo or freeBASE El Cap

meant climbing one of the routes

straight up the biggest, steepest part of the mountain.

But for the most part,

those climbs are too technically difficult.

Everybody knew there's only one route

that's remotely possible, the Free Rider.

This route, the hardest pitch is

right in the middle of the wall.

The problem is, you know, El Cap's like that shape.

And so lower down, it's not that steep.

If you fall off the hardest section,

you're hitting the slab 80 feet down.

But having a parachute or not wouldn't affect the fact

that you would bounce off, and, like,

it would be a catastrophic way to die.

But I'll tell you what.

That whole top part of Free Rider

overhangs a little bit.

Dean was pretty convinced that the upper part of the wall

was actually quite safe with a parachute.

Eventually, Dean wanted to test the freeBASE

right at the very top of El Cap.

Right.

He rappelled down.

There's a bunch of white cars down the road.

But falling with the BASE rig,

it was illegal what we were doing.

And Dean was stressed about getting caught.

What's that car straight out there?

No tool car or anything?

You think they won't see me?

He came up with the idea

of wearing some sort of superhero mask�

So he couldn't be identified.

Classic, classic Dean.

Whoo!

All right, Bryan, let's do this.

Yeah, my name is Bryan Smith,

and I've been known for adventure filmmaking.

I got this opportunity for a one-hour special

with a big network�

you know, a story about Dean Potter.

Called Dean.

He said it was appealing to do something

for mainstream television.

Dean was like, "Well, I want to solo Free Rider,

"but I'm not prepared to, like, you know,

top to bottom free solo the whole thing."

But he said, "The upper section,

I can climb freeBASE."

In case he fell, he'd be able to jump

and pull a parachute.

It's, like, badass.

Come on over.

When we arrived in Yosemite,

Park Service was already on edge.

Like, "You're filming Dean Potter?

What?"

We're assigned a monitor

to follow every single step that we do

inside of Yosemite National Park.

Yeah.

So we start running this interview.

We're� we're losing light here.

Yeah.

Dean and our Park Service monitor�

It won't be too much longer.

They clearly have a history.

There's, um�I�

you won't censor what I say at all,

Catherine, and I won't�I'll�

So please don't tell me what to say.

And I'd like it best if you couldn't hear my interview,

because I'm uncomfortable around the Park Service.

Thanks a lot.

I've never had a more intense lead up

to a film shoot.

Several days before the climb,

with all the drama coming from Park Service,

they said there can be absolutely no BASE jumping�

not a single parachute, nothing.

So you're gonna have to climb this,

like, without a parachute on your back.

Dean didn't know what to do.

He was freaking out.

His intensity just starts ramping up.

He doesn't want to talk.

You have a million questions,

but you probably shouldn't ask him anything.

Eventually, he was like,

"OK, I'm gonna do this without a parachute."

But he was scared.

We didn't know if he could do what he was gonna do.

But the whole film crew is here.

He didn't want to bow out.

The day before the climb, we're going up the trail,

getting our equipment to the top of El Cap.

- Take that camera. - Yeah.

He had concocted some kind of crazy approach

from the top to down climb, traverse in,

and then free solo the upper section of Free Rider.

Camping up there,

Dean became more and more distant,

kept moving his tent further away,

just completely separating himself from production.

Everyone on the crew was like, "Is he OK?

Is he gonna survive?"

I mean, I barely slept that night.

The morning of, Dean told us, "Get your shit together.

Don't fuck it up, and, like, be ready for the shots."

- Can� - Ask them.

Maybe they can.

Everyone moved into their positions.

- Ready. - Ready?

Yep.

And got ready for Dean to make a grand appearance.

He had this, like, red, tattered shirt on.

And Dean said, "Oh, this is a shirt my dad gave to me,

and I always wear it on days that I think I'm gonna die."

And I mean, I've worked with professional athletes

that are very good at managing risk.

Where most people would stop and be like,

"OK, I don't feel well, maybe I shouldn't do this,"

Dean's feeding off of that energy to, like,

kind of push himself forward to the brink.

Then he started slowly moving across

this, like, secret approach.

The ledge, it's getting smaller and smaller.

Squeezing himself through these places.

Eventually, he gets to this hard spot

on the upper part of Free Rider.

We were shitting ourselves.

And now all of a sudden,

he's, like, 3,000 feet off the Valley floor.

He gets up to this section, the off width.

There's no handholds or footholds.

Just, like, wedging himself in there.

Every move, it's a total fight.

You can see it's taking a toll on him.

It was pins and needles, and I was right in his face.

This whole time, I was trying to stay focused on the shots,

but I was so scared of making a mistake on the camera side.

You know, you drop a lens cap, you kill the guy.

All of a sudden, somebody comes on the radio.

Tell him to shut up now.

Tell him to shut up.

Tell him to shut up.

Please no radio.

We're in the middle of filming.

No radio.

Sorry.

No problem.

Sorry I lost it.

He's, like, apologizing to us.

I mean, dude, you don't need to apologize to me.

You're, like, hanging with no rope.

He got to the top.

And it's not, like, a moment of excitement.

I don't know.

I think he's just taking in that

he's still there and he's�he's still alive.

I was pretty fucking nervous.

Were you� like, that was the�

I didn't sleep last night and had, like�

was, like, feverish and, like, a little bit,

like, unsettled or very unsettled all night.

And that was my deepest spiritual act right there.

So it's even kind of weird to share it with the camera.

For us as a group, this was a big deal.

For the first time in history,

somebody had free soloed a huge section of El Capitan.

El Capitan's headwall has now been climbed ropeless,

and I think it's just a matter of time

till he does it from the ground, probably.

There's not too many people in the world to do that.

- No, there's one. - I mean�

yeah, there's one guy.

- His name's Dean Potter. - And it's not Alex.

It really is, like, the first�first step

towards soloing El Cap,

the most ultimate free solo in the world.

The day after the climb,

there was this complete reset in his personality.

It was clear that, for Dean,

in these on-the-edge, life-or-death moments,

there was a payoff.

Like, the death consequence, as extreme as it is,

it is such a teacher.

It's just so pure.

Like, it's like,

if I live, I'm really happy.

Like, it's that simple.

Like�like, if I live through this, afterwards,

it puts me in this totally different state.

And then it just simplifies, like�

like, how good life is.

You put your life out there.

You feel these different things,

and they're�they're, um�

they're�like, we have more in us than we�

than we� than most of us realize.

And I�I mean, I still think

I'm just tapping into it a little bit.

I'm hungry for this now.

I felt it, and I want more.

So Dean's solo, the route that he called the Easy Rider,

that was, like, the first volley,

his own personal step toward free soloing El Cap.

To me, I was like, oh, that's creative.

That's interesting. Power to him.

Like, that's cool.

But it's a long ways away

from actually doing the hard thing.

You know, now you only have to worry

about the bottom 2,500 feet.

But Dean had a vision.

He had plans.

Dean cooked up a concept to go

way off to the left-hand side of El Cap

to solo this route called the West Face route.

It's a little smaller and, by itself,

not considered one of the big, proud, real El Cap routes,

but it just happens to go right into

that circuitous linkup that he had figured out to the top.

He called it the West Rider.

It was soloing the West Face and to the Free Rider finish.

He had found a way he could claim to be

the first person to free solo El Cap.

Super inspired by the idea

of this West Rider route,

picking away at that.

Seems like it will come into doable

sometime this spring.

You know, Dean was pretty secretive

about the whole thing.

This climb was really important to him.

But Alex heard that he was planning on doing that.

I don't know who leaked it.

I'd heard rumor that Dean was gonna

solo the West Face of El Cap

and connect it over into the Easy Rider.

And that, to me, felt slightly threatening.

If he did that,

mainstream media would have no�

you know, like, it would be considered

the first free solo of El Cap,

but that's the� the most weaselly way

to free solo El Cap.

The idea of somebody doing this, like,

sneaky little reach-around where they start on the side,

they finish in the middle, they call it an El Cap route,

I was like, that is a hard no.

I was like, that is doing a disservice to El Cap.

Honnold's, like, defending the honor of El Cap,

like that is an achievement

below the dignity of El Capitan.

So�yeah, so what was your� what action did you take?

I knew that if I free soloed the West Face before him,

Dean wouldn't be able to claim it as this, like,

first free solo of El Cap.

And then I just went and did it with no fanfare.

"West Face, 5.11c, solo.

"Good times but climbed too tensely on bottom.

Over gripped."

This was a preemptive strike.

Honnold just sort of took the glory out of it,

stole the thunder.

I was hanging out with Honnold.

Alex goes,

"Dean was trying to do that thing on the�

"on the West Face,

"and I nipped that one in the bud,

"and I just ran up there and did that right away.

There's no way he's gonna call that soloing El Cap."

And I was like, wait a second, this is a whole other level.

Right?

It really illuminated the life-and-death struggle

that was playing out between these two.

As I suspected,

it sort of took the wind out of Dean's sails,

and then he never soloed the West Face

and sort of let the whole thing go.

Put the�put the nail in the coffin.

Um, having my projects�

done by others will just help me

lose my overinflated ego.

Yeah, I'm feeling all sorts of different pulls.

Not sure.

Always not sure, not sure.

I think very few of us in our lives

will ever experience anything like

what Dean experienced relative to Alex Honnold.

It makes for fun sports journalism,

but if you put yourself in Dean's heart

as someone who hangs your ego on one or two little things,

you hang your self-esteem on� on a few fragile little hooks,

it doesn't get any easier as you get older.

The�the blows only hurt more.

And Honnold just kept going.

The 2012 climbing season in Yosemite.

2012 was a big fucking year,

because I basically did everything

that Dean had ever done or wanted to do.

And generally in better style

and, you know, faster and whatever.

Yeah, poor Dean.

In that period in the Valley,

Alex systematically demolishes

Dean's records, Dean's projects.

Dean wanted to do this thing called the triple linkup.

Of course, Honnold did it first.

I rope soloed the triple�

totally something that Dean should have done

if he thought he could.

And then right after that,

I broke Dean's speed record on the nose on El Cap.

Honnold teams up with Dean's old nemesis, Hans Florine.

Honnold called me and said,

"Dude, we're getting this frickin' record."

Come on, Alex!

I was a little stunned

that he was so fiercely competitive.

Yeah, I mean, I'm competitive.

You know, like, if I'm playing somebody at ping pong,

I want to win.

We totally smoked it.

Alex just obliterates everything.

There's almost a cruelty to it.

It just happens over and over again.

The guy seeks out my projects and�and does them before me,

and I do nothing to try to stop him.

I think the most brutal moment

was when Alex repeated the free solo of Heaven.

Dean had free soloed that super hard crack route

where he got to the top,

and he let out this primal scream.

He's proven himself as a warrior

and joined the demigods.

Alex gets a call from some tech company.

They want to shoot an ad with him.

I have a website because I need a way

to put myself forward.

Well, I could just do laps up and down it

so you guys could shoot it a whole bunch of times.

No big deal.

I'm Alex Honnold,

and this is my Squarespace.

At some point, I saw a voicemail on my phone

from Dean that was several minutes long,

ranting about me respecting his project,

respecting my elders,

and my lack of propriety in�in climbing.

I was like, oh, no. It was all bad.

But it was kind of like, OK,

there's no more competition.

It's just done.

For Dean, the writing was on the wall.

The future had arrived, and he was no longer it.

So that's painful.

Dean knew that his time as the king of Yosemite was over.

And I don't think he could handle that.

Dean was lost.

It was one of those periods

where he was incredibly difficult.

Eventually, he would alienate himself

from everyone in his life.

I was, like, a reporter for the mags,

and I wrote this little article about, like,

what he was doing on El Cap.

And he came up to me and was like,

"I need to talk to you, Cedar,"

and, like, grabbed the handlebars of my bike

and just started pushing me backwards away from the group,

dude, and was basically like,

"If you ever talk about one of my projects again,

like, I'm gonna fucking kill you."

Like, that was the vibe.

And I was just like, gulp, you know.

You guys were friends.

Dude, we were, like, really good friends.

And then, dude, he would just snap on you, you know?

And that was the beginning of the end for me

of my friendship with Dean.

Over the years, this is something that

all friends of Dean endured�

anger and frustration and jealousy.

Whatever thing inside him that got triggered.

I was the first of us to break up with Dean.

We did the raddest shit.

Jimmy led us here.

And it was the most fun and most out there.

I took a pretty nice whipper, 40 footer or something.

I caught it.

Jimmy caught it, got throttled a little.

But then when I started to be recognized

for my own climbing, I became competition,

and it's like, what?

Like, what the fuck happened?

I did try and be like,

you know, like, what's up, dude?

Like, what's going on?

"It's because I heard you're taking all the credit."

And I'm like, really? Like�

Dean didn't know how to share, basically,

is what it comes down to.

He did not know how to be gracious

with another person's light.

I would see him all the time,

but it was always like�

You know, shields up.

Gotta protect myself.

What do you want?

Dude.

I want it to be easy.

Yeah, Bradley.

For me, the end of the road was a certain point in time

where, for years, Dean and I had been

working on this film project that expresses his art.

And he thought this was gonna be a big deal.

I think as his climbing legacy was ending,

this film was going to be his redemption.

He wanted, like, a theatrical release.

You know, he wanted a�a orchestral score.

And it just kept growing.

It was incredibly taxing.

He would get so mad.

He would get so frustrated.

We'd be editing in my little bedroom.

I made a cut that he didn't want to make,

and he was having a psychotic fucking break.

He grabbed me,

and he fucking lifted me out of that chair.

Like, he just fucking takes a swing,

and he, like, stops it on my nose.

And he's, like, pressing against my nose

just to let me know.

I don't know�

I don't remember what I said,

but in essence, it was like, we're done.

Take this equipment.

Take the�take everything.

We're done.

I can't have this in my life anymore.

Like, it's not healthy.

He just stormed out.

A couple of days after, he's like,

"I want everything you've ever shot.

"It belongs to me.

You sign off rights to it forever."

I was like, that sounds fucking great, actually.

So we have decided we aren't working together anymore.

Yeah.

He had drawn up a document signing over everything.

It says Brad Lynch and Dean Potter,

business separation.

Brad Lynch releases all his rights

to all footage he ever shot of Dean Potter.

- Yep. - Yep.

He's like, I'll give you $13,000.

No bad-mouthing.

Total nondisclosure about creative process and conduct.

The one exception is talking to a therapist

who has signed a specific nondisclosure.

I spent all of that money

on just fucking mental health care.

Ten years I spent in therapy.

Ten fucking years.

Dean and I, we never spoke again as friends.

I'm sorry.

I just fucking�

Over time, Dean lost a lot of people in his life.

His friends, they're dropping out.

Well, there you are.

That's kind of cool.

Aside from all the emotional drama,

you know, I still believed in Dean.

Yeah, I fucking love that guy.

Your eye isn't�

hits the screen.

Sometimes it felt like I was the last man standing.

But I knew that he needed support.

He needed a friend.

He hadn't had a serious romantic relationship

since Steph.

He said, "Hey, Winky."

I go, "What?"

He goes, "I need your help."

I'm like, "What?"

He goes, "I can't get laid."

I'm like, "How am I gonna help you?"

"I just need to get laid."

I go, "No, no, no, you need a lot more than that.

You're just lying to yourself."

Right?

I go, "Until you get yourself square with yourself, dude,

"it's�you're not gonna� it's not gonna happen,

or you're gonna make some really serious mistakes."

And that's when he got involved with this woman.

She was this cool, intelligent person,

but something wasn't right with her mental health.

You could tell.

After, like, a short period of time,

Dean tried to end it, but she wouldn't let go.

And he continued to reject her.

Dean comes back to his house,

and there's her car sitting in the driveway.

And there she is in the driver's seat,

slumped over.

She had taken a bunch of barbiturates.

Dean tried to resuscitate her, called the rangers.

By the time the Park Service responded,

she had passed.

Imagine how it must have felt to him.

But honestly, he didn't even ever talk about it.

I was like, "Dude, what the� what happened there?"

He's like, "She had some problems."

And that was it.

That was it.

But I could tell he was extremely agitated.

I could see the turmoil, the darkness.

He was really fucking low.

And understand, this all happened

two weeks before he goes to China.

Chinese state television proposed that

Dean come to China to do these stunts.

Slacklining and BASE jumping.

They're gonna put it on live TV

in this country of a billion people.

They were offering him quite a bit of money.

I believe it was $200,000 cash.

Three, two, one.

- OK. - OK.

He wants me to come along and help out,

film the process.

I was like, "OK, OK, cool, cool, cool," you know.

But I'm thinking, fuck, this guy is in

a really weird fucking headset.

He's way too tense

for anything good to happen out of this.

Immediately, they bring us to a fucking Chinese Hooters.

What's this?

all: Hooters!

Which is so weird.

all: Hooters!

Then we go to this five-star hotel,

and there's a press conference.

It was his 40th birthday on that particular day.

One, two, three.

Happy birthday, Dean!

How do you like that?

We get to this place, middle of nowhere in China,

and there's these incredible mountains.

There's TV trucks and people everywhere.

There was Mike Beck, Dean's lawyer,

and Forrest, the translator.

I'm Forrest Liu.

I'm a climber and a slackline walker.

My job was to be Dean Potter's translator and assistant.

I feel so excited because, oh, this is an American legend.

Dean was, like, cool guy, really friendly.

He getting along with the local villagers.

But I can see the situation for him,

it's crazy.

People and cameras everywhere.

Dean has to deal with that because they pay him.

In the days leading up to the big event,

Chinese state television was filming promotional content

for the broadcast.

So the first order of business is a BASE jump.

But there's all these people up there

swarming around the cliff edge.

One of the cameramen from television

called Beetle, he's kind of a wild man.

He makes everybody nervous.

No, Beetle.

Don't let him try. No.

Beetle!

You, Beetle.

Hey, no, no, no.

He could kill her.

We got to calm everything down.

- Gotta calm down. - No, stop it. Beetle.

- I heard. I heard. - You stay there.

Hey, Beetle!

Tell him I'm fucking serious, and he's got to calm down.

Come on.

Go down.

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.

Oh-ho-ho!

Any good.

Tell them I will say, "Three, two, one, go."

7, 6, 5.

Tell me when.

Wait, I can't�what?

Hey, wait. OK, go.

- I'm gonna count it. - OK, count it.

- Ready? - Go.

Three, two, one.

See you.

You know, throughout his career,

Dean had tried to straddle an ethical divide

between his art and commerce,

between pure motivation and impure.

Nice meeting you. My name is Jackie.

- Nice meeting you too. - Congratulations.

- Thank you. - What's the score?

How would you score your flight this time?

I never score my flight.

Why?

I have no competition or no scoring system.

- OK. - This is art.

This is spirituality.

Mr. Potter, sure.

This is as commercial as he can get,

and he knew that.

But he's still resisting it.

Pretty outrageous out here.

In a few days, on live TV,

it's the main event.

Dean's got to walk this solo high line, no leash.

The line was about 130 feet.

It's longer than anything he's ever soloed.

And Dean out there playing around on his line.

He's gonna have to walk this slackline on command.

Hunan television station is the most popular one in China,

and it's a live show.

I think the organizers were getting nervous.

It can be a legend or a disaster.

And we notice there's this huge cargo net laid out.

So this is the net, huh?

It was a safety net to put below him.

And Dean was like, "What the fuck is this?

What is this?"

And they go, "Oh, well, we know

"we want to put this net there just to make sure.

"You know, we don't want you dying

on Chinese state television."

And Dean was like, "I don't fucking need it.

"No. No fucking way.

I'm not a fucking circus performer."

And this is a real deal for him.

So the planners are like, "OK, we won't use the safety net."

So it looks like they're trying to rig the net.

But then we see them installing the safety net.

We need to know your plan.

Yeah.

Like, are these guys�

And they tell Dean, "Don't worry.

No one will know it's there."

He goes into this rant about how

they're making him look stupid.

What's going on?

We've done everything we've said,

and they keep lying to us.

I've done everything� I told the truth.

And now, you know, I had to lie on the fucking radio sta�

on the TV station right there.

I'm not gonna lie anymore.

You know, I'm gonna tell everybody

there's a big fucking net underneath me,

like, and that Hunan is a bunch of fucking liars.

I was kind of the middleman.

If I translate directly to Chinese,

everything gonna be messed up.

Meanwhile, the money was supposed to be

in the escrow account back in the United States,

and the guaranteed payment has not been paid.

And he says, "No money? That's it.

I'm out of here."

Sorry.

Bye-bye.

So.

No, bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

- We go home now. - Yeah, yeah.

I know. Go.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Nobody want him go back to America.

That's OK.

I go bye-bye.

So I have to try to calm him down.

Dean digs his heels in there and says,

"Look, either I get the money or I'm done with this thing."

Sure enough, they bring in duffel bags stuffed with cash.

That was all very mafia.

Now he's got his money, and there's no net.

Before he solos this thing,

he's got a few days to practice with his leash,

and he would try to walk the line.

And he couldn't.

He was nervous.

Breathe.

And we were talking, "This is not

"the master we saw in the movie.

What's going on?"

He kept falling and falling.

When he was trying to practice,

there are tons of cameramen.

It was hard for him to focus.

Go away.

Go away. Go away.

Dean could not walk that line.

But he had no choice.

He had to walk the line.

If you fall right at the beginning,

it's not too bad to catch and save yourself.

But toward the middle,

something that long�

it gets wobbly.

Definitely, like, way harder to catch.

Without the leash, if you miss the line,

you're in the void.

Whoa.

Dean was so fucking stressed.

And he goes, "OK, so where's the butt weed?"

And I was like, "What?"

He goes, "The butt weed�you know,

the weed that you put up your butt to bring over here."

I go, "I didn't put any weed up my butt, dude."

He tore into me.

He told me how worthless I was.

I'm lazy, and what a mistake it was

to bring me here.

And I just ran into my room,

and I just started to cry.

I never felt so betrayed.

Like�

I gave him everything I had.

The next morning was the day of the live event.

How do you feel now?

Um, I feel� just trying to relax.

It's, like, totally unknown

whether I make it across or not.

I'm looking at Dean,

and I could see him collapsing inside.

I could see it, like, in his eyes.

It's not there.

He doesn't have it that day.

And Dean looks at me and goes, "OK, Winky,

"if I fucking fall, right, you come down.

"You don't let anyone touch my body.

"You take care of me.

You're gonna take care of me, right?"

And I'm like, "Yeah, dude, I'm gonna take care of you.

"Right? It's not a problem, man.

You're my�you're my brother."

It was just everything bad coming to a head.

How do you feel now?

I'm just trying to calm myself.

I was just thinking,

this is a guy that gave everything to master his arts,

and now this is it?

Risking your life for a couple fistful of dollars?

Everybody is suddenly quiet,

like the whole world is frozen.

That's more than 100 million people are watching.

Out in the middle of the line,

it starts to look wobbly.

And I'm like, fuck.

I was just fucking willing.

He fucking stuck that thing.

So he gets to the end of this line,

and on this live feed,

we can hear him sobbing.

- Wow. - Wow.

He had just gone to the deepest, darkest place

he possibly could to stay alive.

But he had lost touch with himself

as an artist and a friend.

It's like� he made it across the line,

but he was a broken man.