It's fair to say that Jimmy Fallon has accomplished a lot. He made his debut on Saturday Night Live in 1998 (which can be streamed with a Peacock subscription) and, eventually, he got the chance host his own late-night talk show in 2009. Needless to say, Fallon's hosting stints, film and TV roles and epic return to SNL after leaving have made him a household name. With that notoriety though, comes plenty of criticism, and the star just revealed how he deals with it.
The Tonight Show host appeared on the podcast, The Diary Of A CEO, on which he told host Steven Bartlett what it’s really like to be in the spotlight. When asked what he wasn’t prepared for in regard to fame, Fallon said “rejection” as well as getting his sketches cut and being told that he’s not funny by haters. Fallon pointed out that it was all before the age of Twitter, so it was a different ballgame:
You think that it’s just gonna be like, ‘This is cool. It’ll be great.’ But not everyone’s rooting for you. Some people want you to fail. People’s jobs are to take me down and put bad press out. That’s their job. I don’t live in that world, I don’t believe that it’s real. But it kind of is real. And you go, ‘Oh, people are just gonna be mean.’
Unfortunately, when it comes to celebrities, hate, criticism and bad press normally come with the territory. It may be commonplace, but it's still sad to see that some people make it their job to tear others down. However, it sounds like Fallon doesn’t listen to much of it and chooses to focus more on his work instead. The entertainer emphasized that as he continued to speak with Steven Bartlett:
And [you gotta] just toughen up and get through it and keep your head down and keep being funny and just keep doing things and keep being creative. If you move that [criticism] out, you realize that’s not even real. It’s real, but it’s noise, and it doesn’t affect you. You can only believe in yourself and know that you have to keep going. And, if you keep scoring, that will show, your work will show.
32 Hilarious Quotes From Jimmy Fallon From His Talk Show And SNL
Jimmy Fallon has a great way of looking at his circumstances. What he's basically saying is that he doesn’t really listen to all the criticism because if he doesn’t, it really has no effect on him. On the other hand, critiques can really tear a person up if they adhere to them too much. Obviously, there’s only so much that he can ignore. Still, Fallon is still one of the biggest stars Saturday Night Live has produced, he's appeared in some of the most beloved SNL sketches and is currently host of The Tonight Show. I'd say he's doing quite well despite what any haters might say.
At this point, the Fever Pitch star is over 11 years into his run with the aforementioned talk show. He's seen his share of ups and downs in that time, with NBC even having made some cuts to the show's budget in recent years. Still, Fallon doesn’t seem to be eager to leave anytime soon. He’s also been busy with Password and That’s My Jam, both of which also air on NBC.
Many of us would probably be wise to heed Jimmy Fallon's advice about blocking out negativity. There are certainly benefits to having thick skin, and one is that it certainly helps to deflect any kind of mean or unkind energy that comes one's way.