“It was very tense”: Slash nearly missed I’m Just Ken gig at the Oscars, Ryan Gosling reveals

This year’s epic Oscars team-up featuring Slash, Wolfgang Van Halen, Mark Ronson and Ryan Gosling himself nearly ended up with the Guns N’ Roses axeman out of the picture, according to the Barbie star.

The actor reveals during his recent appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! that Slash – who played on the studio version of the track along with Wolfgang — almost missed out on their iconic I’m Just Ken performance due to his packed schedule.

• READ MORE: “I don’t normally talk so openly about things, so this was new for me”: Wolfgang Van Halen says taking part in Behind The Music was “incredibly cathartic”

“We had to have Slash, but he’s an enigma, there’s too much mystery around him,” Gosling recalls.

”It was very tense,” he adds. “He had a gig in China the night before and then one in Thailand the night after. So it was like, ‘Slash is never going to be able to be here.’ He wasn’t at rehearsal.”

Thankfully for Ryan (and the rest of us) the guitarist eventually turned up, and armed with his trusty Les Paul, delivered a smashing performance that made the night of the 96th Academy Awards one to remember.

“Suddenly, as I was walking into dress rehearsal, I saw a guitar case and it had a skull with a top hat on it,” says Gosling. “And I knew that Slash had arrived. Then after the show, he was gone.”

For Wolfgang, the lead-up to Hollywood’s biggest night of the year was, in fact, “more stressful” than his own wedding day.

“I think it was more stressful getting ready today,” the Mammoth WVH frontman told People.

In other news, Wolfgang Van Halen recently reunited with Slash on stage at the closing night of the latter’s joint tour with Alter Bridge’s Myles Kennedy at Paris’s Le Zénith. Together, the trio surprised fans with a glorious cover of the AC/DC classic Highway to Hell.