"At one point, she said, 'He's not gonna bite me, right?'" he shared. "And my answer is always, and my agent hates me for this, 'Probably not.'"

He also remembered telling the singer, "You're freakin' Britney Spears, you know, if this thing bites you, I think my career is over."

But, as fans around the world witnessed that night, the performance went off without a hitch.

"She was very good," Hano told Today. "She was very focused and initially she was scared of the snake, but you could see that she was able to focus and kind of push yourself to be able to work with the thing and look comfortable doing it."

Look back at more of the most memorable MTV VMAs moments of all time below: