Tina Fey defends Jimmy Fallon’s Donald Trump Tonight Show interview
By Hector Cruz
Tina Fey came to the defense of Jimmy Fallon over his controversial Tonight Show interview with Donald Trump during an event in New York City.
Tina Fey is coming to the aid of her former SNL colleague and now-Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon, who was widely criticized for his soft interview with Donald Trump last month where he mussed the Republican nominee’s hair, and failed to ask him any hard-hitting questions. It quickly drew a strong rebuke from various media figures, including Full Frontal host Samantha Bee.
During a conversation at Produced By New York on Saturday, Fey decried the “ugly” presidential election, which she claims has caused her to gain weight, before explaining why she feels that Fallon was unfairly criticized.
“I really felt for Jimmy when people were so angry,” she said, per Deadline. “It’s not Jimmy who peed in that punch bowl, it’s not Jimmy who created this horrible world that we’re currently living in.”
However, the actress did reference her former “Weekend Update” co-anchor’s interview with Trump during a joint appearance on SNL earlier this month where the pair played undecided voters from her home state of Pennsylvania, telling Fallon’s character, “Everyone thinks you love Trump. You’re always like, ‘Oh, his hair is real!’”
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At the conference, Fey went on to admit that the election has caused her to become the current SNL cast and crew’s “worst nightmare” after routinely checking in with them to hear their takes on the debates and other campaign events. Fey, who played Sarah Palin in 2008, also came to the defense of the show’s political sketches during her tenure on the show, which has been accused of having a liberal bias by Trump and other conservatives.
“We spent so much time and care on making sure everything was a fair hit,” she said of her work with Amy Poehler and then-head writer Seth Meyers, who now hosts Late Night. “We never, ever went into it thinking, ‘We gotta protect Obama’ or ‘We gotta make (the Republicans) look bad.’ Audiences can smell when a sketch is tipped.”
The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt producer also revealed that she snubbed Sen. Al Franken’s request for a donation to his political campaign when he first ran for the senate after he publicly criticized a sketch she wrote about Sen. John McCain. The comedian-turned-politician is a former SNL writer and performer.
“I thought, ‘You’re not wrong, but you do know my phone number. You wanna tell me or Larry King?” she said. “When he won, I texted him, ‘I knew you could do it without my four thousand dollars.’ To his credit, he texted back to me, ‘F— you.’”
Next: NBC sets SNL election special on eve of Election Day
The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon airs weeknights at 11:35 p.m. on NBC, while SNL returns Nov. 5 at 11:30 p.m. with host Benedict Cumberbatch and musical guest Solange.