After canceling one of his shows to mourn his mother’s death, Jimmy Fallon returned to the studio Nov. 13 for a new emotional episode of “The Tonight Show.”
“As some of you know, my mother Gloria passed away recently, and I canceled our shows last week to be with my family and make arrangements. She was the best audience. She was the one I was always trying to make laugh, and she was such a fan of the show and everything I did,” Jimmy Fallon said while tears were flowing down his cheeks.
“When we were little, my mum would walk us to the store — me and my sister — and we would hold hands. And she would squeeze my hand three times and say, ‘I love you,’ and I would squeeze back, ‘I love you, too.’
“Last week, I was in the hospital at her side. I grabbed her hand and I squeezed, ‘I love you,’ and I just knew we were in trouble.”
With tears still rolling down his cheeks, Jimmy thanked all his fans for their love and encouragement.
“I feel so grateful to be able to do this every single night, and I’m very appreciative of all the support from all of you that my family received over the past week. We are going to continue to work hard to bring life and laughter into the world. Thank you for watching. Thank you for helping me and my family recover from this loss. Mom, I’ll never stop trying to make you laugh,” Jimmy said.
“I love you.”
As his show continued, Taylor Swift showed up.
Taylor was not scheduled to be on the show, so fans were surprised when she arrived on stage. The 27-year-old sat down at the piano, and what came next left everyone very emotional.
Taylor decided to perform “New Year’s Day,” a song coming from her latest album, “Reputation.”
As she started singing the song, people quickly realized that the lyrics paired perfectly with what Jimmy Fallon had previously said about his mother. She sang:
“You squeeze my hand three times in the back of the taxi / I can tell that it’s gonna be a long road / I’ll be there if you’re the toast of the town, babe / Or if you strike out and you’re crawling home.”
According to Mike DiCenzo, Taylor’s performance was an act of pure kindness.
DiCenzo, who works on the production of “The Tonight Show,” tweeted later that “she was not scheduled to do our show today. But we wanted something special for this first show back, so we asked her on a complete whim, since she had been in town doing SNL. She said yes with zero hesitation.”
DiCenzo then spoke of the emotions that arose in both Jimmy Fallon as the audience.
“I nearly gasped. Tears. I think everyone in the audience started sobbing. I could see Jimmy silhouetted at his desk dabbing his eyes with a tissue. We all lost it. It was a beautiful coincidence in a beautiful performance.”
The performance was a beautiful surprise to both fans and Jimmy Fallon.
Drummer Questlove from The Roots later tweeted:
“I’m just realizing Taylor didn’t readjust the song’s lyrics for tonight’s performance. But the narrative literally applies to the words Jimmy spoke of his mother. Wow. You can’t plan these things @taylorswift13 @FallonTonight.”
He also tweeted: “Like we are mins away from 2000 episodes and in our 8 years on the air I’ve never heard the ceiling almost cave in once @Higbones said Taylor’s name, rewind dvr, and you can see me ask the producer’s desk, ‘Y’all didn’t tell them Taylor was the music act!!?’ Ha ha @FallonTonight.”
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