Jimmy Fallon surprises Parkland school students at graduation

The Tonight Show’s Jimmy Fallon showed up unannounced to surprise graduating students of the high school in Parklandl, the site of a shooting in February.

I’m not sure any of these graduates were expecting to see the host of The Tonight Show!

Back in February of this year, tragedy befell Parkland, Florida, when a young gunman opened fire at the town’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. One of many school shootings in the United States of recent years, the situation received a tremendous amount of attention in the press. It’s spawned a big debate in the country concerning the topic of gun control, but for this story, we’re not going to get into any of that here.

On Sunday afternoon, nearly 800 graduates gathered to obtain their degrees. As reported by Deadline, a surprise guest speaker there was revealed to be none other than Jimmy Fallon. But while the late night funnyman retained his sense of humor and cracked a couple jokes, the comedy wasn’t his focus. Rather, Fallon delivered an inspiring speech to the graduates. “When something gets hard, remember that it gets better,” the speech included.

It’s said that the school doesn’t traditionally feature guest speakers at graduation. Considering the circumstances, however, an exception was made for Fallon. Only invited guests were allowed into the ceremony, but Fallon gave fans a peek at his appearance by tweeting a video clip. It doesn’t contain the full speech, but it does show us what it was like for the people in attendance to see.

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We commend Fallon for taking the time to travel to Parkland to speak with the graduates. It clearly shows great character on his part. To watch his show, tune in when The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon airs weeknights at 11:35 p.m. est on NBC!