Aside from Jimmy Fallon‘s Tonight Show staff, it seems that more of his colleagues and coworkers may have reportedly encountered a “toxic environment” with the comedian. Recently, a passage from Tina Fey‘s 2011 memoir, Bossypants, resurfaced on social media. In it, Fey recounts a tense interaction that she and fellow actress Amy Poehler once had with Fallon while they were all in the writers’ room at Saturday Night Live.
This week, fans have been sharing and commenting on a post featuring the excerpt from Fey’s book on X (previously known as Twitter). Fey recalled a table read where Fallon reportedly called out Poehler in a way that seemingly made the two women feel uncomfortable. Furthermore, Poehler was a newcomer to the SNL cast at the time, adding to the difficulty of the situation.
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Tina Fey's 2011 Book Passage About Jimmy Fallon And Amy Poehler Goes Viral
"Amy Poehler was new to SNL and we were all crowded into the seventeenth-floor writers’ room, waiting for the Wednesday night read-through to start," Fey wrote. "Amy was in the middle of some such nonsense with Seth Meyers across the table, and she did something vulgar as a joke. I can’t remember what it was exactly, except it was dirty and loud and ‘unladylike.'"
Fey continued: "Jimmy Fallon turned to her and in a faux-squeamish voice said, 'Stop that! It’s not cute! I don’t like it.' Amy dropped what she was doing, went black in the eyes for a second, and wheeled around on him. 'I don’t f—g care if you like it.'"
The Mean Girls star noted that Fallon was "visibly startled" after this, but Poehler apparently went "right back to enjoying her ridiculous bit," not letting it bother her.
The 30 Rock alum went on: "With that exchange, a cosmic shift took place. Amy made it clear that she wasn’t there to be cute. She wasn’t there to play wives and girlfriends in the boys’ scenes. She was there to do what she wanted to do and she did not f—g care if you like it."
This passage went viral on X after a scathing Rolling Stone report was published. In it, various Tonight Show employees accused Fallon of exhibiting drunken behavior while on the job, verbally abusing employees, and having an unpredictable temper that can fluctuate with his moods.
Fallon and Tonight Show showrunner Chris Miller allegedly led a Zoom meeting after this report circulated online, according to Rolling Stone. Fallon reportedly apologized to his current staff and crew the "embarrassing" allegations.
Two employees who said they attended the meeting told the outlet that Fallon also confessed that he never meant to "create that type of atmosphere for the show."
