Tonight Show
Keke Palmer had a moment on the red carpet at this year’s Met Gala. And while she looked fabulous and enjoyed the evening, it wasn’t without its stressors. Chief among them was being called out by none other than Nicki Minaj on the red carpet. The Nope star stopped by The Tonight Show on Tuesday […]
Jimmy Fallon is the latest guest to take on the Hot Ones challenge, eating increasingly spicy wings as host Sean Evans asks questions. However, it’s hardly Fallon’s first rodeo. Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news He often incorporates a Hot Ones segment with Evans on his Tonight Show, […]
Jelly Roll capped off an epic weekend with a stirring performance of his collaborative single with MGK, “Lonely Road,” on The Tonight Show on Monday night (Sept. 30). After headlining Madison Square Garden, then performing on Saturday Night Live‘s 50th season opener and headlining the Global Citizen Festival, Jelly put a button on a career quadfecta by teaming up with Machine Gun and the song’s producer, Travis Barker, for an inspired run through the song that interpolates John Denver’s beloved 1971 “Take Me Home, Country Roads” single.
KellyRoll (as the duo have dubbed themselves) began the performance singing the song’s aching refrain a cappella while standing on either side of a flaming garbage can backed by three soulful back-up singers. “Lonely road, take me home/ To the place that we went wrong/ Where’d you go now, it’s been a ghost town/ And I’m still here, all alone,” they sang in unison before Kelly called Barker to the stage and busted into his rap verse.
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The Blink-182 drummer tapped out the song’s clip-clop rhythm on the lip of the can before scooting over to a proper drum kit as Jelly and Kelly meandered to host Jimmy Fallon’s desk set to make themselves comfortable. Seated in the guest spot on the couch, Jelly Roll crooned, “I use alcohol to fill that hole/ Will our home ever be the same?,” as MGK tapped out the rhythm on Fallon’s desk.
The performance ended with the two men standing on either side of Barker, with always humble Jelly thanking Fallon and the viewers at home for “allowing us into your living rooms tonight.”
Before the set, Jelly made his first visit to the Tonight Show couch, admitting that he was so nervous that he may have “tinkled” himself a bit. “I won’t know until I do a full assessment,” he joked. He then admitted that he likely “double-tinkled” himself being in a sketch on SNL, the sadly cut-for-time hilarious House of the Dragon spoof “Blonde Dragon People,” where he played Lord of the Rings‘ Samwise Gamgee to Andy Samberg’s Legolas, for some reason.
“I was more nervous for the sketch, obviously,” he told Fallon. “Because I’m already a fish out of water in the music business. And I’m a double-fish out of water when I was there… I’m just whaled out!” And, just days after Machine Gun addressed his former beef with Jelly at the 2024 People’s Choice Country Awards — where he said, “Jelly, I love you. We went from 10 years ago, hating each other, to elevating each other” — Jelly Roll told Fallon, “I just love him to death. We’ve known each other a long time and we started on rocky roads and made amends.”
Jelly Roll’s upcoming album, Beautifully Broken, is due out on Oct. 11.
Watch Jelly Roll on the Tonight Show below.
Keith Urban proved he’s a man of many talents on Tuesday night’s (Sept. 24) Tonight Show, when host Jimmy Fallon asked him to do an impromptu cover of any pop song that came to mind. After recalling how he got a ukulele as a kid from his parents before switching to guitar at 6, Urban recounted his youthful talent show adventures — including a very embarrassing picture of one of his award-winning performances — as well as a short teenage stint in the metal band Fractured Mirror. Given his eclectic musical background and his penchant for reimagining chart-topping hits during shows, Fallon questioned how Urban chooses which pop songs to cover during his concerts.
“Just [a] well-written song,” Urban said of how he chose his live takes on songs by Taylor Swift and Ariana Grande. “Taylor songs are well-written, the bones are good, they’re well written, so you can do them in any form. You can do any well-written song in almost any style,” he added. When Fallon asked if any song was stuck in Urban’d head that moment, the singer suggested Sabrina Carpenter’s summer smash “Espresso,” but do it on banjo.
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So, of course, despite seemingly not having tried that combo before, Fallon surprised Urban by pulling a beautiful six-string banjo out from behind his desk, which Urban proceeded to expertly pick as he sang the song’s indelible chorus while the studio audience clapped along in time.
Urban also had a chuckle with Fallon over a prank they pulled on the singer’s wife, actress Nicole Kidman, at the Met Gala in May.
“I was sitting next to Nic, and she had her hand on mine, and she was talking to somebody,” Urban explained. “And Jimmy came over and talked to me, and I say, ‘Jump in the seat, Jimmy, and just, like, slide your hand in under mine, so she’s holding your hand. She won’t know.’” So Fallon — who will never forget that time Kidman revealed in 2015 that she used to have a crush on him and that he missed his shot at a date with her — slid into Urban’s spot for the switcheroo that totally caught The Perfect Couple star off her game.
“So Jimmy slides in, so Nic’s got his hand like this,” Urban said as the host put his hand over the singer’s hand. “This is Nic and him.” Urban then described walking around to the other side of the table and waving at his surprised wife. “And she was like, ‘What’s going on?!’” Fallon said in his best shocked Kidman voice. “She’s like ‘What?! Jimmy, don’t do that!’”
During the chat, Urban also talked about his new record, High, and said he made a completely different LP called 615 that he had ready to go last year before scrapping it entirely because it didn’t feel quite right before returning later in the show to play the High single “Chuck Taylors.”
Watch Urban on the Tonight Show below.
Linkin Park stormed back onto late-night on Tuesday (Sept. 17) with the TV debut of their intense single “The Emptiness Machine,” marking their first Tonight Show performance with new singer Emily Armstrong. The song from the band’s upcoming first album in seven years, From Zero (Nov. 15), blasted off with singer/guitarist Mike Shinoda on the mic on a set that looked like an ice station on a frozen planet thanks to moodily lit plastic draping surrounding them.
With new drummer Colin Brittain keeping the steady beat, Shinoda urgently sang the song’s pleading chorus, “I let you cut me open/ Just to watch me bleed/ Gave up who I am for who you wanted me to be/ Don’t know why I’m holding what I won’t receive/ Falling for the promise of the emptiness machine.”
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While the performance exploded into a driving dual-guitar grind, Armstrong took center stage and unleashed her howling vocal attack as the stage flickered with colored effects. Trading vocals with Shinoda, Armstrong gripped the mic with both hands, screaming out the chorus amid the strobing lights.
“The Emptiness Machine” debuts at No. 21 on this week’s Hot 100 (dated Sept. 21), marking the nu-metal group’s highest-peaking Hot 100 song in 15 years; their previous highest placement on the chart was the Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen soundtrack single “New Divide,” which reached No. 9 in 2009.
Shinoda also sat down with host Jimmy Fallon to discuss the “euphoric” feeling the band had after the rebooted lineup’s debut performance at the Kia Forum in their native Los Angeles on Sept. 11, which marked the kick-off of their first tour since the death of singer Chester Bennington in 2017. “To be this many years in and to feel, like that genuine adrenaline and excitement and happiness was… there’s nothing like it, man,” said Shinoda of the first date of a six-show arena tune-up for what is expected to be a much larger 2025 tour.
Shinoda also had to laugh at Fallon cueing up an embarrassing video from the comeback L.A. show in which the singer had a major malfunction while performing “Remember the Name” from his side band, Fort Minor. Right after Shinoda sang the line about “50% pain,” he ran into the mic stand and bonked his head.
He also talked about what it’s felt like to put the band back together after the tragic loss of his longtime friend and bandmate Bennington.
“I think the important thing for us is that we never set out to, like, ‘Let’s bring the band back’ or ‘Let’s find a singer,’” Shinoda said of the surprise announcement earlier this month that former Dead Sara vocalist Armstrong would be taking her place on stage next to him for the band’s new iteration. “That was never our intention or our goal… It was almost like this new record… we wrote it, we came up with the music while we were creating the new band. When we started the music we didn’t have a band and it just came together while the music came together.”
Watch Linkin Park on the Tonight Show below.
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Justin Timberlake was back in comfortable confines on Monday night (Sept. 16) when he visited The Tonight Show to hang with his good pal and frequent sketch partner host Jimmy Fallon. After a lengthy, laudatory pre-interview wind-up running down the multi-hyphenate singer’s resumé, Timberlake took a seat as Fallon assured his friend “you’re well-liked here.”
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The visit was Timberlake’s first public appearance since pleading guilty to impaired driving in New York’s Sag Harbor Village Court on Friday, where he was sentenced to 25 hours of community service and hit with $760 in fines and court fees. “I did not live up to the standards that I try to hold for myself,” he told the court, before addressing the judge, “I should’ve had better judgment. I understand the seriousness of this.”
Timberlake did not address the plea deal or the DWI incident during the visit, which focused on the singer’s Forget Tomorrow world tour; on Tuesday morning (Sept. 17), JT announced a string of 10 new 2025 dates for the outing (see below).
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The friends mostly joked around, with Fallon demurring when Timberlake repeatedly suggested that the host would come out and do a mandatory warm-up set before Justin’s upcoming Barclays Center show in New York on Oct. 7. “I’m not doing anything,” Fallon assured him. “I’m going as a fan… screaming.”
“Shouldn’t Jimmy come out and do a 15-minute set?” JT baited Fallon as the studio audience howled at the idea.
Fallon also noted that he’s always giving Timberlake advice about touring, for example, suggesting he sit on a stool and play for 45 minutes. Instead, Timberlake plays for more than two hours and as Fallon noted, does a dramatic bit during “Mirrors” where he flies out over the crowd on a giant robotic arm that looks cool, but has led to some regrets from the singer.
“I’m going to say that was my idea… After 53-54 shows,” Timberlake said haltingly before standing up and getting into an arms wide open, leaning forward pose, “I was up there one time, just, like, suspended over everyone. I was like, ‘I could be on a stool right now.’”
“Yes! I told you that!” Fallon said enthusiastically, requesting that when he comes to the show he would like to not be able to see Timberlake that well. Clarifying, Jimmy said he doesn’t want such good seats next time, getting up from his desk and standing within a foot of JT to demonstrate his usual VIP status.
“I don’t know what to do with myself,” Fallon admitted of being so up-close-and-personal. “I don’t dance… and so I just stand there and I bore your wife (actress Jessica Biel), so she leaves me [and] I’m by myself. It’s too much pressure for me.”
“Do you not want to come to the show?” Timberlake wondered. Amid the giggles and the inside jokes, Fallon teased a new holiday song the pair recorded for the host’s upcoming Christmas album, tracked at New York’s Electric Lady studio. “You’ll Be There,” described as a a “holiday bromance” tune, mixes sleigh bells and ukulele for a chilled-out island vibe, with JT singing, “The only thing on my wish list/ Is that you’ll be home for Christmas.”
The pair also played a round of “Playlist Playoff,” in which Fallon and Timberlake competed to pick the perfect song for different scenarios, including a pre-workout jam and the track they’d want on repeat if stuck in an elevator together, which prompted Justin to pay tribute to recently deceased R&B icon Maze frontman Frankie Beverly.
Check out Timberlake on The Tonight Show below.
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Timberlake’s new 2025 North American Forget Tomorrow world tour dates:
Jan. 13 – Portland, OR @ Moda Center
Jan. 15 – Sacramento, CA @ Golden 1 Center
Jan. 18 – Anaheim, CA @ Honda Center
Jan. 20 – Palm Springs, CA @ Acrisure Arena
Jan. 23 – Phoenix, AZ @ Footprint Center
Jan. 25 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Delta Center
Jan. 28 – Denver, CO @ Ball Arena
Feb. 3 – Austin, TX @ Moody Center
Sabrina Carpenter contains multitudes. The former Disney Channel star showed off her child actress chops, and then some, on Thursday night (August 22) on The Tonight Show when she performed a jazzy version of her inescapable Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 hit “Please Please Please” after joining Jimmy Fallon and fellow guest Zoë Kravitz in the basement for the host’s very silly signature “EW!” bit.
Channeling Michelle Pfeiffer’s iconic sultry piano-top performance from 1989’s The Fabulous Baker Boys, Carpenter kicked-off her performance of the strong contender for song of the summer seated atop a white grand piano. Looking over her left shoulder while singing into a bejeweled microphone, the singer revamped the pop bop into a swoony torch song with the help of three back-up singers, as well as a string and horn section.
Barefoot in a glittering black gown with a daringly plunging neckline, Carpenter crawled, then stood on the piano while emoting her way through the song with the NSFW chorus that she thankfully amended for NBC censors. The performance came on the night Carpenter dropped the anticipated follow-up to 2022’s Emails I Can’t Send, Short n’ Sweet, which in addition to chart-topper “Please” also gave the singer her first top 10 hit in April, the equally inescapable “Espresso.”
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Carpenter also showed up earlier in the episode alongside actress and Blink Twice director Zoë Kravitz for a trip to the basement for Fallon’s long-running sketch “EW!” Joining brace-face Sara on the couch, Kravitz and Carpenter, as Lucy and Hailey, bounded down the steps in colorful outfits bursting with cute as Kravitz — chomping on a gigantic wad of gum like her life depended on it — lamented being “so not ready” for school to start.
The summer camp chums also showed off their friendship bracelets, which the pals noted were, ahem, “very mindful, very demure,” to shouts of approval from the studio audience who clearly are on board with the viral phrase’s creator, TikToker Jools Lebron. Kravitz’s read “nightowl” because she stayed up “sooooo late,” while Carpenter’s was “Sweetie Pie,” because she ate “soooo much candy” and Fallon’s read “Splash,” because, she shouted, “I’m like a mermaid!”
As usual, the guests could barely contain their laughter at Fallon’s over-the-top ridiculousness, especially when they jumped up to do their “Espresso” dance, only to be interrupted, ugh, by Sara’s super annoying, dorky step dad, Gary. He then ruined the fun by busting out the most cringey version of the only song of the summer he acknowledges, “Kumbaya.”
The bit ended with the obligatory EW! speed round. In short: mullets (EW!), PopSockets (EW!), Hokas (EW!), Love Island (EW!), Stanley Tucci (cute) and pink drink (love!).
Watch Carpenter on The Tonight Show below.
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BTS star Jimin has performed his latest solo single “Who” as the musical guest on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Monday night (July 22). The track is from his second solo album MUSE, which was released on July 19.
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According to Deadline, Jimin is “currently participating in his mandatory military service in South Korea, having enlisted in December 2023. His appearance was filmed before his enlistment.”
The high-energy performance aired on Fallon features Jimin and a group of dancers in an artfully staged abandoned building. It begins with Jimin’s emotive vocals, accompanied by intricate choreography that complemented the song’s longing lyrics.
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“We never met, but she’s all I see at night/Never mеt but she’s always on my mind,” confessed Jimin in the video, before singing: “Wanna give her thе world and so much more/Who is my heart waiting for?”
It’s not the first time Jimin has appeared on the late night show. In March last year, he made his U.S. solo debut performance of his ’80s-inspired song “Like Crazy.” He also sat down with Fallon to discuss a range of topics, including meeting President Joe Biden and keeping in touch with his BTS bandmates.
Jimin first announced his second solo album Muse back in June, with BigHit Music writing in a statement that the album would showcase his “expanded musical spectrum.”
“Following his first solo album, Face, where he sought to explore his true identity, ‘Muse’ documents his journey in search of the source of his inspiration,” the release continued.
The album also features collaborations with Loco and Sofia Carson.
Earlier this week, Jimin‘s Muse topped this week’s new music poll that features artists in various genres of music. Music fans voted in a poll published Friday (July 19) on Billboard, choosing the BTS star’s second solo album as their favorite new music release of the past week.
Muse brought in 68% of the vote on the poll, securing a notable edge ahead of new releases from Stray Kids (Ate), Joe Jonas (“Work It Out”), JADE (“Angel of My Dreams”), Childish Gambino (Bando Stone & The New World), and others.
Following 2023’s Face, which hit No. 2 on the Billboard 200, Muse continues Jimin’s experimentation. Jimin debuted solo in 2018 with “Promise” and became the first South Korean soloist to reach No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with “Like Crazy” in 2023. He’s also set to release a docu-series, Are You Sure?!, with Jung Kook, chronicling their travels.
Check out Jimin’s performance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon below.
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Sure, Taylor Swift has been barnstorming the world on her massive Eras Tour for the past year and is, arguably, the biggest pop star in the universe. But according to pal Channing Tatum, when she’s not rocking tens of thousands in stadiums, or flying across the globe to hang with boyfriend Travis Kelce, she’s low-key whipping up delicious snacks for her friends.
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“I was a fan of the music because I’ve listened to her forever but I did not know she was such an unstoppable force,” Tatum told Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show on Thursday night (July 11) after the host shared a pic of the actor with Gayle King at an Eras Tour show at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles in August 2023. Tatum, 44, came ready to play for that gig with a glitter heart around his left eye and a homemade “It’s Me, Hi I’m the Daddy It’s Me” shirt fashioned by his daughter, Everly.
“I mean, I kind of know her a little personally and she’s really kind of just normal and sweet,” Tatum added before dropping a pastry-related bombshell. “And she’ll make you, like, a dinner, and like whip it up no problem. Like, homemade Pop-Tarts. Like warm, warm Pop-Tarts. I’m like, ‘Did you just make these? How are these warm?’”
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Blown away by the Eras Tour gig — where Tatum said he was very careful to do just “hand-dancing” and keep it G-rated in front of his daughter by avoiding any Magic Mike-like below-the-belt gyrations — the actor said he considers Swift to also be an elite athlete. “And then you get to see her go on stage, for like a three-plus hour show … I challenge any triathlete that’s a champion to go and do what she’s doing on stage. I was a fan-fan after that,” he said.
Tatum — who currently stars in the new NASA-themed film Fly Me To the Moon – also gushed about his engagement to actress/director Zoe Kravitz. “I’m so happy, I don’t even know how to really put it into words,” Tatum said. “She’s so special and yeah, I don’t know, to get to wake up every day and create with somebody. It’s really, really good.” When Fallon joined in on the lovefest by praising Kravitz’s cool factor, Tatum tried to play it cool himself, before admitting that his beloved is actually, okay, fine, “annoyingly cool… it’s a problem.”
He said the two of them met on the set of her psychological thriller directorial debut, originally called P—y Island, now called Blink Twice, which is due out on August 23. Tatum — who, not for nothing, has a resting shredded body — had a laugh with Fallon about his soon-to-be, insanely ripped father-in-law, Lenny Kravitz, 60. The pair gazed in awe at a picture of the rocker showing off his washboard abs in a shirtless Instagram post, with Tatum saying, “I don’t even understand, like, how do you do it? He’s not from this planet.”
And yes, the actor has seen Kravitz work out and he and Fallon had a laugh about the “most iconic” thing Tatum said he’s seen “in decades”: the viral video of Lenny pressing iron on an incline bench in leather pants, boots, shades and a mesh shirt. “I thought it was AI at first!” Tatum said. “And I was like, ‘oh no, it’s not AI, it’s just Lenny Kravitz.”
Watch Tatum discuss Swift’s pastry prowess, Kravitz’s crazy workout routine and play “Slap!” below.
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Camila Cabello came to The Tonight Show to play on Wednesday night (June 12), with robot dogs, ice cold stories and killer dance moves. In addition to performing her frenetic single “I Luv It” with help from blindfolded dancers, Cabello talked about her upcoming album, C, XOXO (June 28)) played a new game with host Jimmy Fallon and cleared up some rumors about her viral frozen Met Gala purse.
Cabello and Fallon reminisced about running into each other at the annual fashion fantasia earlier this year and the singer admitted that by the time she saw Jimmy she was “very drunk” because she was so stressed from what happened earlier. Fallon then pulled out a picture of Cabello’s purse from that night, which consisted of a rose frozen in a block of ice.
“I didn’t think about the fact that ice, very quickly, melts,” Cabello said. “And so I get there and it’s my worst, the nightmare situation where suddenly the clutch breaks. I think it was Ed Sheeran was there he was telling a joke or something and somebody accidentally moved it and before I get my picture taken the clutch completely breaks.”
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Cabello described being surrounded by shocked A-listers including poet Amanda Gorman, actress Rachel Sennott and model Kaia Gerber, who all gasped when the purse’s straps broke off. “This is the thing you least want to happen — a bunch of famous people looking at you having a breakdown during the line before you take your picture at the Met Gala!” So Camila said she turned to Gerber and a few others for advice, landing on the solution of converting it into a (very slippery) clutch instead.
Fallon then assured Cabello that she was “glamorously” holding the block of ice, putting up a picture of a stone-faced Camila cradling the drippy purse. Also, for the record, she threw cold water on the viral report that her purse cost $25,000. “Guys! It’s water frozen!” she yelled. “You can make it at home!”
Cabello also explained her fourth album’s title, saying the new collection is a chapter in her life that feels “personal to me and authentic to me and like signed by me. Like writing a letter to someone. This is me, like it or not.” When Jimmy asked Cabello about her writing process, after noting that she has no co-writers on this album, Cabello gave an example of her skills by busting out her phone to sing a tune she wrote for the show on her way to the studio.
The voice note featured Cabello humming lightly while she sang, “New suit, same chair, new dress, blonde hair/ We’ve seen each other through some phases/ Past lives, debuts, Met Ball, saw you/ Good to have a friend in scary places/ Jimmy-a, Jimmy-a, Jimmy alright/ They came for a show well Jimmy alright/ It’s another late night/ It’s another late night talkin’,” as an astonished Fallon looked on.
The singer came back for a round of the new game Dance Charades, in which one player wore headphones and danced to a song whose title the other player had to guess. Cabello proved to be quite adept at the game, acting out Olivia Rodrigo’s “Vampire” while pretending to bite her arm as Fallon shimmied awkwardly to Shakira’s “Hips Don’t Lie.”
Cabello came back one more time to sing “I Luv It,” the first single from her follow-up to her 2022 LP Familia, which features guest spots from Drake, Lil Nas X, Playboi Carti and City Girls. The set opened with Cabello in a silver dress, baggy leather gloves and a black blindfold with white x’s over her eyes — a spooky look her four dancers mirrored — in the high-energy performance that featured her back-up crew holding a pair of dancing Unitree robot dogs on leashes as giant fans sent their strappy costumes flying.
Watch Cabello on The Tonight Show below.
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