Jimmy Fallon dropped Lady Gaga for NAACP president: "I had to really examine myself in the mirror this week" after blackface controversy

The Daily Beast

The Tonight Show host was originally scheduled to have Lady Gaga as a guest Monday night. Instead, Fallon chatted with NAACP President Derrick Johnson and CNN's Don Lemon to discuss his blackface controversy and the protests surrounding the killing of George Floyd. “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,” Fallon said on Monday's show, referring to last week's apology after his 2000 sketch resurfaced. “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?” Fallon said of his fellow SNL alum Rock: "I respect this guy more than I respect most humans. I’m not a racist. I don’t feel this way.” Fallon added he was advised to stay quiet on the blackface controversy. “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...We cannot try to bury this again. It’s not going to get buried. It’s not going away.” Fallon then spoke to Johnson, who applauded the late-night host for the "courage" of his apology.