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Jimmy Fallon apologized on-air for donning blackface in a resurfaced 2000 “Saturday Night Live” clip, insisting that he’s “not a racist.” “The Tonight Show” host opened up Monday night’s episode by promising “a different kind of show” before saying he was going to “start this personally, then expand out.” “I had to really examine myself …
Jimmy Fallon apologized on-air for donning blackface in a resurfaced 2000 “Saturday Night Live” clip, insisting that he’s “not a racist.”
“The Tonight Show” host opened up Monday night’s episode by promising “a different kind of show” before saying he was going to “start this personally, then expand out.”
“I had to really examine myself in the mirror this week because a story came out about me on SNL doing an impression of Chris Rock in blackface,” he said. “And I was horrified. Not of people trying to ‘cancel’ me or cancel this show, which is scary enough. The thing that haunted me the most was, how do I say I love this person?”
Speaking of Rock, he said that he respects him “more than I respect most humans.”
“I’m not a racist. I don’t feel this way,” Fallon said.
Fallon had previously issued a brief apology on Twitter for his “terrible decision” after the calls for his cancellation began trending under the hashtag, “#whyjimmyfallonisover.”
“What I kept getting advised was to just stay quiet and not saying anything,” he said. “And that was the advice because we’re all afraid. I took the advice and thought ‘g-d I’m going to do this wrong. You’re right. I’m going to say something and get myself into more trouble.’”
But Fallon said he then “thought about” and realized that his brief statement was not enough to show his remorse for his actions.
“I realized that I can’t not say I’m horrified and I’m sorry and I’m embarrassed,” Fallon said. “I realized that the silence is the biggest crime that white guys like me and the rest of us are doing, staying silent. We need to say something. We need to keep saying something. And we need to stop saying ‘that’s not OK’ more than just one day on Twitter.”
