New York – Jimmy Fallon is opening up about the personal anguish he felt following the backlash to his now-infamous hair mussing appearance with Donald Trump.
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The host of “The Tonight Show” tells The Hollywood Reporter he “made a mistake” and apologized “if I made anyone mad.” He adds that he “would do it differently” looking back on the Sept. 15, 2016 episode.
Trump opponents criticized Fallon for a cringeworthy interview only weeks before the election where Fallon playfully stroked Trump’s hair. Fallon’s show eventually lost more than one-fifth of its audience and its late-night crown to Stephen Colbert’s new and more political “The Late Show” for CBS.
Fallon said in a Hollywood Reporter podcast that he wasn’t approving of Trump or his beliefs just because he joked with him: “I did not do it to ‘normalize’ him or to say I believe in his political beliefs or any of that stuff.”
The talk show host has discussed the episode before, explaining in a 2017 interview with Vanity Fair that he was just “trying to have fun” with Trump, but revealed that he was “devastated” to learn that people had a negative reaction. He also told The New York Times: “If I let anyone down, it hurt my feelings that they didn’t like it. I got it.”
But in the podcast, Fallon reveals the backstage fallout to the criticism that he had been too soft on Trump. “It’s tough for morale,” he said. “You go, ‘Alright, we get it. I heard you. You made me feel bad. So now what? Are you happy? I’m depressed. Do you want to push me more? What do you want me to do? You want me to kill myself? What would make you happy? Get over it.'”
He said he works hard and is one of the “good people,” but faced a “gang-mentality” online. “People just jump on the train, and some people don’t even want to hear anything else. They’re like, ‘No, you did that!’ You go, ‘Well, just calm down and just look at the whole thing and actually see my body of work.'”
Oh so sad for liberals that he “normalized” the “outlier” president. It must be soooo tough. So now its not Commey or the ruskies or mysogony its fallon’s fault because he “normalized” him.
Anyone else see how crazy the world is? Here we have a sitting president clealry elected by a significant amount of the people, yet anyone who normalized him is in the dog house? (yes yes yes we know he didn’t win the popular vote so don’t harp about that but he clealry won the electoral) And then you believe the FBI , Russian investigation is not tainted with such altitudes? They are not baised? They don’t frown upon anyone who defends Trump?
As a side not, newest Quinniac poll has Trump at approval ratings similar to prior presidents. NPR is very troubled with those numbers!! Love it
I am not sure why the problem here is. The problem to have with him is that he was too soft or too nice to the president?
Not a drop of sympathy from me. Fallon has systematically gone after this great President and mocked him at every turn.
The lefts poster boy gets what he deserves.
Hollywood liberals are as stupid, vile and sick as the libtards here!