Jimmy Fallon has addressed his controversial interview with Donald Trump, saying that people “have a right to be mad” at him.
The Tonight Show host received criticism after he invited the then presidential candidate on to his show and refused to ask him any hardball questions, instead indulging in playful antics.
“If I let anyone down, it hurt my feelings that they didn’t like it. I got it,” the ex-SNL comic said in an interview with the New York Times. Trump’s appearance on the show coincided with an interview he gave to the Washington Post, in which the candidate refused to say that Barack Obama had been born in the US, yet Fallon avoided bringing it up and instead chose to ruffle his hair.
“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: ‘He did the thing that we all wanted to do.’”
The negative feedback to the segment was widespread and Fallon said he spent time online reading the responses.
“I’m a people-pleaser,” he said. “If there’s one bad thing on Twitter about me, it will make me upset. So, after this happened, I was devastated. I didn’t mean anything by it. I was just trying to have fun.”
Post-election, Fallon has been losing out in the ratings battle to The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, though he brushes it off. “I never, ever care,” he said. “I’ll know when someone fires me.”
