Jimmy Fallon’s Culture of *ahem* “Abuse”
Usually I live and breathe for a celebrity takedown (I still celebrate the anniversary of Chrissy Teigen getting cancelled), but I find this one to be a bit much. First and foremost, we need to stop expecting celebrities to be good people. Obviously, no one is above the law or common human decency, but it shouldn’t be this shock to the system that a famous person can sometimes be difficult to work with. Jimmy Fallon is perfectly lovely with his guests, but it’s not unthinkable that he would be a little brusque behind the scenes. Moreover, unlike other disgraced celebrities like Ellen or Lizzo, I’m not sure where Jimmy Fallon came out and said his personal motto in life was to be nice to everyone, so it’s not even an issue of hypocrisy.
I feel about the Jimmy Fallon controversy the same way I felt about the Miley Cyrus teenage schedule thing last week: yes, in a perfect world where every day is springtime and flowers bloom from the concrete, the Tonight Show workplace would be stress free and fun all the time. However, in the real world, it’s extremely common to be stressed out and occasionally miserable at prestigious, high-pressure jobs. You kind of know what you’re signing up for.
Let’s examine some of the excerpts from the Rolling Stone article:
“Sometimes the boss was having a bad day and you could tell he was irritated”
Yes, welcome to having an eccentric boss (or every job ever tbh). Did y’all not watch The Devil Wears Prada and then proceed to talk about how Miranda Priestly was the real hero of the story for the next ten years?
“These employees say they’ve witnessed Fallon snap at crew members, express irritation over the smallest of things, and berate and belittle staffers out of frustration.”
Oh no. He SNAPPED at you? Somebody get him behind bars.
“One former employee says they had their first anxiety attack while working at the show and were put on anti-anxiety medication for the first time. Another employee says they felt physical ramifications of their declining mental health, like their hair thinning and weakened nail beds.”
Okay, this is what I’m talking about. Obviously, in an ideal world, people wouldn’t be stressed out at work. However, is it really so shocking that this type of job is stressful? Like, everybody’s seen those memes about 30 year old bald investment bankers — are we all about go protest outside Blackrock over here?🤔
A recurring thread throughout the article is that working for Jimmy Fallon was supposed a dream job for a lot of people, and it quickly became a “nightmare”. News flash: a lot of people aren’t happy in positions that AREN’T their dream jobs. Do you know what I’m saying? I’m sorry your boss was mean and snappy to you, but it really could be a lot worse.
Taylor’s New Beau
For the past couple weeks or so, there’s been speculation that Taylor Swift has been secretly going out with football player Travis Kelce, who apparently went to her Kansas City show and tried to give her his number to no avail (or, rather, some avail, since I guess they did eventually end up getting together lol).
Although the chances of this blossoming into forever love seem kind of low (like…what do they even talk about?), I’m rooting for them! Unlike many of her past paramours, he’s not swarmy/British/shorter than her, so you know, that’s promising. He also has blue eyes, which seems like kind of a requirement for Taylor if you have even the most cursory knowledge of her musical catalogue. Also, they’re both born in 1989, so no potential devastating Dear John age-difference ballads in their future.
VMAS
I took a walk on the wild side & watched the VMAs live last night! I haven’t actually watched the VMAS since literally freshman year of high school, and it was definitely a thrill. Some takeaways:
Taylor Swift won like fifty f*cking times. I low-key feel bad about people nominated in her category — like, the whole point of the VMAs is that fans vote, and we know that Taylor’s base is particularly rabid, so it’s almost a fait accompli that she’s going to win in any category
Taylor was also overserved lmao. You could see her drunkenly swaying to and fro during every performance. She must have been absolutely wasted because she was generously singing along to Demi Lovato, who notoriously hates Taylor
Demi Lovato’s performance was f*cking heinous. She’s doing this thing where she’s rerecording all of her music in a rock & roll style, which is soo weird to me — I swear she got one TikTok comment about how she should do rock & just ran with it. Demi has a good voice, but she just pushes it too far every time & ends up screaming
I’m a little worried about people who thought Olivia Rodrigo actually had some sort of breakdown during her performance. Having the stagehand escort her off was part of the act lol.
I’ve hated on Doja Cat’s new evil aesthetic before (mainly bc I just find it derivative) but she’s a really great performer. Def commanded the stage and all that
Selena Gomez pouted all night long and then left immediately after winning her one award. Then, when people jokingly teased her about not cracking a smile all night long, she posts this shit:
Like, get overrrr yourself. I know her bff Taylor has a victim complex, but this is on another level lmao. You’re a public figure, people will make memes of you. DJ Khaled was a meme for like five years and you don’t see him making passive aggressive IG stories about it. Ugh, Selena is just so DOUR all the time. If I were rich and famous despite having all the talent of a 12 year old at performing arts summer camp, I would be on cloud nine every day, not moping around bc someone was lightly ribbing me in the E News comment section
Behind the mere $5 paywall, read more VMAs commentary as well as our deeply problematic thoughts on Ariana Grande crying during her Vogue makeup video. We appreciate you! Xx
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