Jerry Seinfeld offers different version of events in Jimmy Fallon exposé

Rolling Stone's report initially detailed an "uncomfortable moment" between Fallon and a staffer during a taping with Seinfeld

By Emma Keates  |  September 11, 2023 | 4:58pm
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Jerry Seinfeld offers different version of events in Jimmy Fallon exposé
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Jimmy Fallon and Jerry Seinfeld Photo: Larry Busacca

At this point, so many daily television show hosts have been accused of fostering a toxic workplace dynamic that certain, let’s call them “conventions” of the genre have begun to arise. First, there’s the obvious non-apology, popularized by Ellen DeGeneres and James Corden and most recently utilized by Jimmy Fallon in response to a Rolling Stone report published last week. In the report, 16 current and former staffers alleged that The Tonight Show was a horrible, no good, very bad place to work.

Now, Jerry Seinfeld is invoking a second essential trope: the “actually, that’s not the truth, Ellen,” coined, of course, by Dakota Johnson in response to the host’s suggestion that she wasn’t invited to Johnson’s birthday party. This time, however, Seinfeld is taking a moment to defend the host in question, and the proverbial Ellen of it all is Rolling Stone.

“This is so stupid,” Seinfeld said in a statement published in response to the report by both Rolling Stone and Variety. Seinfeld was named in the initial exposé in relation to an “uncomfortable moment” in which Fallon allegedly berated a staffer in charge of cue cards for the evening, to whom Seinfeld reportedly asked Fallon to apologize. “It was one of the strangest moments ever and so many people were there, so it’s kind of hard to forget,” said Rolling Stone’s source.

Seinfeld has a different version of events. “I remember this moment quite well,” he wrote. “I teased Jimmy about a flub, and we all had a fun laugh about how rarely Jimmy is thrown off. It was not uncomfortable at all. Jimmy and I still occasionally recall it and laugh. Idiotic twisting of events.”

The Tonight Show is currently on hiatus due to the writer and actor strikes, so it is not yet clear how this story may affect Fallon’s tenure moving forward.

 
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