Dark Scandals Jimmy Fallon Can't Erase
The following article includes allegations of addiction issues and sexual assault.
Jimmy Fallon has been a fixture on people's television screens for decades, starting when he joined the cast of "Saturday Night Live" in 1998. Being on the late-night sketch show was a lifelong dream for Fallon, providing a platform to showcase his celebrity impressions, ranging from Bee Gees singer Barry Gibb to talk show host Regis Philbin. After his exit from the show in 2004, Fallon embarked on a movie career – starring in such films as "Taxi" and "Fever Pitch" — before returning to TV as host of NBC's "Late Night," taking over from exiting host Conan O'Brien in 2009.
Fallon ultimately landed an even bigger gig when he was tapped to replace Jay Leno as host of "The Tonight Show," making his hosting debut in 2014. Marking his 10th anniversary as host of "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" in 2024, Fallon has generated a steady stream of late-night laughs over a showbiz career spanning four decades.
Fallon's on-air antics, especially during segments like "True Confessions" or "Box of Lies," have gone completely viral over the years, easily making him a household name. Amid that fun and frivolity, however, the comedian has also dredged up plenty of controversy.
His 2014 bar brawl
Reports of excessive drinking have dogged Jimmy Fallon for years, and it's likely alcohol was involved when he became involved in a 2014 fight in a Big Apple bar. As Page Six reported, he and a few friends went to grab a few drinks at Niagara, a watering hole in NYC's East Village, when Fallon apparently clashed with some other patrons. The report referenced a tweet (long since deleted) issued by a bar patron, accompanying a photo of the late-night host. "Fallon just got in a fight at Niagara Bar. Go NYC," the witness wrote in the caption accompanying the picture.
"There was some hostility from some people at the bar. Jimmy was not the aggressor, but he was caught up in it. It was broken up and Jimmy and his friends immediately left," a source told the outlet. "There was a kerfuffle, a dust-up amongst other patrons," another source added, noting that Fallon managed to extricate himself from the situation. "It was not caused by him and he was in and out in five minutes."
If Fallon did indeed get into a bar fight, it wasn't the first time. His former "SNL" co-star and drinking buddy Horatio Sanz confirmed to Vulture, "Yeah, we got in a couple of brawls. I've seen Jimmy clock a few people ... Jimmy could fight. I don't know where he learned, but he definitely scrapped with the best of them."
The rumors about Jimmy Fallon's drinking persist
In that aforementioned interview with Vulture, Horatio Sanz recalled that both he and Jimmy Fallon drank heavily during their "Saturday Night Live" years. "We were super-functioning alcoholics, definitely," Sanz said, offering a potential explanation for their hard partying back then. "They say that kind of goes hand in hand with 'SNL,' some kind of substance-abuse issues, because it's so stressful you easily find yourself blowing off steam a lot."
After he left "SNL" for "Late Night," and then "The Tonight Show," rumors of excessive drinking continued to pop up. "It's gone from being a whisper to a chatter," a source told the New York Post, alleging that NBC was becoming increasingly concerned about Fallon's boozing. Those rumors were confirmed by an unidentified bartender, who claimed to have served Fallon on many occasions over the years. "He's a mess," the bartender said, but added, "I love him." However, she also said that when it came to reports of Fallon's drinking, it was definitely an example of the old adage, where there's smoke, there's fire. "Everything you've heard [about his behavior] is true," the bartender stated.
Meanwhile, a different source told the publication that drinking is Fallon's way of coping with the stress of putting on a five-day-a-week talk show on network television, with millions of advertisement dollars and hundreds of jobs on the line. "There is so much money at stake, the pressure is enormous," the source explained.
He suffered multiple injuries — was alcohol involved?
The rumors about Jimmy Fallon's drinking escalated in 2015 after the late-night host suffered a series of seemingly freak accidents. The first of these took place in June, when he claimed that he had tripped at home, stumbling over a braided rug. While trying to break his fall, his wedding ring caught on something and nearly tore the finger off of his left hand. He underwent emergency surgery that managed to reattach the finger, but took him off the air for two weeks.
Not long after, while still recovering from his finger injury, he shared a photo of himself on Instagram, sitting in a dentist's chair. According to Fallon, he chipped his front tooth while attempting to open a jar of scar-reducing gel for his finger. Then, just a few months later, he was at Harvard University — to be honored by the Harvard Lampoon — when he tripped and fell while holding a bottle of Jägermeister, injuring his right hand. However, a source told People that the accident wasn't Fallon's fault and he had tripped over a woman he didn't notice who knelt down in front of him.
While bad luck could certainly account for that spate of injuries, NBC executive worried that they may have been alcohol-related. "There were fears that Fallon was out of control and something could happen while he's out drinking," an "NBC insider" told Page Six.
NBC had to publicly quell Fallon's drinking rumors
As speculation surrounding Jimmy Fallon's drinking became more pervasive, then-NBC Entertainment chairman Bob Greenblatt was asked about those tabloid reports in 2016 while speaking with journalists at the Television Critics Association press tour. As Entertainment Weekly reported, Greenblatt insisted that Fallon "doesn't have a drinking problem that any of us know about." In fact, Greenblatt added, "He goes out and has fun. He's had some accidents. Aside from that, he's in better shape than he's ever been."
That said, the executive did admit that the network was concerned about Fallon's overall well-being, on a more general basis. "We are always worried about his safety and health," he said. "There's been conversations about that. The stories are exaggerated about all of it." And while he confirmed there had been discussions between Fallon and the network related to his health, he claimed he wasn't part of those conversations.
For his part, Fallon has adamantly denied rumors of problem drinking and pointed to his weekly gig on "The Tonight Show" as proof. "I could never do a day-to-day job if I was drinking every night," Fallon told The New York Times of the Post's report. "That's just kicking you when you're down."
His softball interview with Donald Trump
It's no secret that the presidential campaign of Donald Trump kicked off with controversy. When Trump appeared on "The Tonight Show" during his run for POTUS in 2016, Fallon famously mussed Trump's heavily lacquered combover but failed to ask any questions of substance. When it was all over, Fallon was widely criticized for the interview.
For Fallon, the backlash was both unexpected and hurtful. "It just got bigger and out of control," Fallon recalled in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter's "Awards Chatter" in 2018. "I saw other comedians from other shows making fun of me on Twitter." Speaking with The New York Times, the comedian confirmed that the message had been received, loud and clear. "They have a right to be mad," he said. "If I let anyone down, it hurt my feelings that they didn't like it. I got it." Messing up Trump's hair, Fallon explained, did not come across as he had intended. "I didn't do it to humanize him," he said. "I almost did it to minimize him. I didn't think that would be a compliment."
Then-President Trump fired back at Fallon for his backtracking on their interview. "@jimmyfallon is now whimpering to all that he did the famous 'hair show' with me (where he seriously messed up my hair), & that he would have now done it differently because it is said to have 'humanized' me," Trump tweeted. "He is taking heat. He called & said 'monster ratings.' Be a man Jimmy!"
RuPaul called him out for ripping off Drag Race
Beyond "The Tonight Show," Jimmy Fallon has experienced success by spinning off popular segments from his show into standalone series, such as his NBC hit, "That's My Jam," and "Lip Sync Battle" for the Paramount network. In the latter program, celebrities face off against each other in a head-to-head battle showcasing their dance and lip-sync skills.
While the show gained popularity with viewers — running for five seasons before its cancellation in 2019 — one person who didn't enjoy "Lip Sync Battle" was RuPaul. In fact, the drag superstar told Vulture that he felt "Lip Sync Battle" was a blatant imitation of his own hit reality competition, "RuPaul's Drag Race's," elimination tactic, the Lip Sync For Your Life.
"It's a poor rip-off of our show," RuPaul said, calling out Fallon for appropriating a cornerstone of gay culture. "Regular, straight pop culture has liberally lifted things from gay culture as long as I can remember," RuPaul added. "And that's fine, because guess what? We have so much more where that comes from. Take it!"
Celebs have mocked his 'phoniness'
As host of "The Tonight Show," Jimmy Fallon tries to make his guests shine. "I'm a people pleaser," he once told The New York Times. Still, there have been times when Fallon has taken that impulse a bit too far, resulting in some awkward television moments.
For example, there was the time that Fallon told guest Rami Malek that if he'd only had his contact info, he would have called him "a gazillion times" to compliment him on his "Bohemian Rhapsody" performance. "You have my email and phone number," Malek responded, with Fallon then trying to play it off, "That's true, but I decided not to call you." Then there was his interview with Joaquin Phoenix, where Fallon jokingly announced that he would be calling the actor "Joaq" because Joaquin was too long a word to say. "I feel like you can handle it," Phoenix responded. "You do a monologue every night."
Of course, no guest made Fallon squirm more than comedian Martin Short, who hilariously called him out as a showbiz phony. "But this is the greatest show on television, because there is no host in late night that pretends to care the way you do," Short sarcastically joked. "I mean, no one captures phoniness the way you do. It's a gift!" Short's fellow guest, Steve Martin, then jumped in to praise Fallon for the "clean image" he has maintained. "I suggest that whatever you're paying the National Enquirer, you should double it!" Martin quipped.
His offensive Chris Rock impression stirred up scandal
Back when Jimmy Fallon was still a member of the "Saturday Night Live" cast in 2000, he appeared in a sketch in which he impersonated Chris Rock. His mimicry of the comedian resurfaced two decades later due to the fact that Fallon was wearing Blackface makeup. While the sketch came and went without controversy at the time it aired, attitudes toward white people portraying Black people had shifted dramatically by 2019, when Nick Cannon brought attention to Fallon's sketch (and several other examples) in a since-deleted social media post.
After being hit with kickback from fans, Fallon took to social media to offer an apology. "In 2000, while on SNL, I made a terrible decision to do an impersonation of Chris Rock while in blackface," he tweeted. "There is no excuse for this. I am very sorry for making this unquestionably offensive decision and thank all of you for holding me accountable."
The late-night host then addressed the scandal in an episode of "The Tonight Show," revealing he had ignored advice to keep quiet and wait for the furor to die down, rather than say something that would make things worse. He told viewers that the most painful part of the experience for him was that fact that he truly loved and admired Rock. "I respect this guy more than I respect most humans," Fallon said of the comedian and fellow "SNL" alum (via USA Today). "I'm not a racist. I don't feel this way."
He faced backlash over cultural appropriation
When Jimmy Fallon welcomed social media star Addison Rae to "The Tonight Show" for a demonstration of TikTok dance moves, he was unprepared for the firestorm of criticism it would unleash. What was certainly intended as a cute bit found both Fallon and Rae hit with backlash over the spectacle of a white person performing dances created by Black TikTokers, without crediting them for the choreography.
"I think Black creators should just stop creating content for like a good 6 months and just observe what these people come up with," noted one tweet. Another viewer opined, "All of [these] dances are made from black creators yet they have this [white] girl In the spotlight taking credit ... shameful."
Fallon responded to the backlash in a subsequent episode, addressing the controversy by interviewing the TikTok personalities who actually created those dances. "On our last show before break, we did a bit with Addison Rae, where she taught me eight viral TikTok dances," Fallon said. "Now, we recognize the creators of those dances deserve to have their own spotlight, so right now, some of the creators will join me to talk about how their dance went viral, and then perform the dance themselves," he said before conducting virtual interviews with five of them. Meanwhile, Rae also responded, telling TMZ that failing to recognize the dances' creators wasn't purposeful. "I think they were all credited in the original YouTube posting, but it's kinda hard to credit during the show," she said.
Fallon was named a defendant in a sexual assault lawsuit
In 2021, an anonymous woman — identified as Jane Doe — filed a lawsuit claiming that former "Saturday Night Live" cast member Horatio Sanz had sexually assaulted her in the late 1990s, when she was just 17 years old. According to her lawsuit, the plaintiff was an "SNL" super-fan, who attended numerous show tapings and even managed to gain entrance to the show's famed after parties. She later amended her suit to include additional defendants who witnessed and allegedly "enabled" the inappropriate relationship: "SNL" creator Lorne Michaels, and former cast members Tracy Morgan and Jimmy Fallon.
In the initial claim, the alleged victim shared her recollections of Sanz grooming her from age 15 and later touching her sexually without her consent in May 2002. Sanz denied the lawsuit's story, with his lawyers refuting her claims as "categorically false." Sanz ultimately settled the suit; Fallon has never publicly commented on the accusations or his role in what allegedly took place.
He halted his support during the WGA strike
When members of the Writers Guild of America voted to go on strike in May 2023, late-night programs immediately went dark since the shows are largely strung together by the writing of the union's members. "The Tonight Show" was among them, and Jimmy Fallon joined his fellow late-night hosts in paying writers from their own pockets during the strike. "I wouldn't have a show if it wasn't for my writers, and I support them all the way," Fallon said while being interviewed by Variety at the Met Gala before the ratification of the strike.
While the other late-night hosts continued to contribute to their writing staff's salaries, things changed at Fallon's flagship. In mid-May of that year, "The Tonight Show" staffer Sarah Kobos tweeted, "This Friday is our last day of pay. We (non-union staff who aren't writers) will be put on an 'unpaid leave of absence' during the strike. Meanwhile I hear folks at 'Late Night with Seth Meyers' and 'The Late Show With Stephen Colbert' will continue to be paid."
According to Fox News, representatives for both NBC and Fallon declined to comment. Later in the strike, Fallon linked up with his fellow temporarily unemployed hosts, Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, Seth Meyers, and John Oliver, to launch their "Strike Force Five" podcast, with the proceeds from the 12-episode series going to benefit the writing staffs of their respective shows. The strike ended on September 27, 2023, and "The Tonight Show" returned soon after that October.
The Tonight Show was alleged to be a 'toxic workplace'
In September 2023, Rolling Stone published a shocking exposé containing scorched-earth allegations about Jimmy Fallon and the behind-the-scenes turmoil of "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon." Several current and former employees shared their experiences, claiming that Fallon's behavior encouraged a "toxic workplace." One ex-staffer went so far as to call the environment a "nightmare," with designated rooms that employees could cry in.
Another former employee claimed that "everybody walked on eggshells" around Fallon, who was described as temperamental, mercurial, and spoiled. "Nobody told Jimmy, 'No,'" one former employee claimed. "You never knew which Jimmy we were going to get and when he was going to throw a hissy fit." According to those claims, Fallon's mood would set the tone for everyone else, who was forced to suffer when he wasn't in a good one. "It was like, if Jimmy is in a bad mood, everyone's day is f***ed," explained an ex-staffer.
An NBC spokesperson responded to the publication's allegations, saying, "As in any workplace, we have had employees raise issues; those have been investigated and action has been taken where appropriate."
Fallon didn't publicly address those claims
The day after that bombshell Rolling Stone article — containing allegations made by 14 former employees and two who still worked there — came out, Jimmy Fallon reportedly spoke to the staff of "The Tonight Show" via a Zoom meeting. "I'm sorry if I embarrassed you," the host said during that call, as reported by Deadline. "I never set out to create that type of atmosphere at the show. I think sometimes I'm working with the best of the best, you guys are the top of the game." He also addressed the allegations — made by 14 former employees and two who still worked there — of contributing to toxicity in the workplace.
While Fallon addressed the allegations with his staff, he did not do so publicly. When asked specifically about the Rolling Stone allegations by Page Six while attending a Broadway opening, he completely sidestepped the question. "Yeah, I'm happy to be back," he said, referencing his recent return to producing new episodes after the end of the writers' strike.
Fallon's refusal to apologize publicly irked those former staffers who had spoken out. "I don't know what the full apology was like because I wasn't there, so it's great if people who still work there got some closure out of it but as someone who was not spoken to it's hard for me to feel like there's any closure," one of those ex-employees articulated to Rolling Stone.
Rumors that his marriage is 'in crisis'
Back in 2016, when Page Six reported on Jimmy Fallon's rumored drinking problem, one detail of the story referenced his relationship with his wife since 2007, Nancy Juvonen. "Things got so serious at one stage that execs feared that Jimmy was splitting up with his wife over his drinking," a source told the outlet, "But they patched things up."
Rumors of marital strife were reignited in October 2023 when InTouch reported a source's claims that the couple's "marriage [was] in crisis" at the time in some part due to his "rowdy" partying. "Jimmy and Nancy have always had a contentious relationship," the "insider" told the tabloid. "Especially during the writers' strike they were fighting a lot, arguing over money, living arrangements and his drinking. She's very, very controlling and it's taking a toll." A second source claimed that Juvonen had given him quite a bit of latitude in the past, but had become fed up. "She partied hard with him back in the day. And he always had a lot of freedom," that source said. "But this is different, they're never together."
If those reports turn out to be true, and the couple isn't able to resolve their differences, that first source believes it will be very costly for Fallon. "If they get divorced, she's going to take every penny," they declared.
If you or anyone you know needs help with addiction issues, or has been a victim of sexual assault, contact the relevant resources below:
- Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).
- Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).