Jimmy Fallon Apologizes for Wearing Blackface on Saturday Night Live

By Rebecca Fishbein  |  May 27, 2020 | 12:00am
CelebritiesDirt Bag
Jimmy Fallon Apologizes for Wearing Blackface on Saturday Night Live
Image: (via Getty)

To add to what is starting to seem like a banner couple of weeks for celebrity racism apologies, Jimmy Fallon apologized on Tuesday for wearing blackface in an old Saturday Night Live skit.

Deadline reports that over the weekend, video circulated of a 2000 sketch in which Fallon donned blackface while impersonating Chris Rock. The sketch isn’t exactly new news, but this time, Twitter worked fast, and #jimmyfallonisoverparty started trending on Tuesday. Fallon later tweeted that wearing blackface for the sketch was an “unquestionably offensive decision.”

There’s actually a pretty long list of entertainers (and, uh, politicians) who’ve worn blackface in the past; a number, including Sarah Silverman, have more recently apologized for taking part in the racist practice. And if for some reason in 2020 you still need an explainer for why blackface is racist, the Root has a good one for you. [Deadline]

Restaurants in Orange County, California are slowly starting to reopen post-pandemic lockdown, much to Real Housewives of Orange County star Kelly Dodd’s understandable delight. Sadly, Dodd also doesn’t seem to understand how viruses work.

Us Weekly reports that Dodd celebrated eating without a mask at an Orange County restaurant, and though I guess it’s fair for people to take their masks off while putting stuff in their mouths, her rationale for the aforementioned masklessness was….not correct.

Per Us Weekly:

“No one is wearing masks here in Orange County. Yup, because no one is dying here of the virus,” the Bravo star claimed, showing off her meal with her mom, Bobbi. Dodd was also joined by 13-year-old daughter Jolie, whom she shares with ex-husband Michael Dodd.
Kelly concluded her day out with a message on her Instagram Stories: “It’s not the government’s job to protect my health. It’s the government’s job to protect my RIGHTS. It’s my job to protect my health. When you trade liberty for safety you end up losing both.”

First of all, people are dying of covid-19 in Orange County—131 people, in fact, have already died, and there’ve been a total of 5,578 cases in the county thus far. And though that number pales in comparison to some harder hit parts of the country, one of the reasons California was spared the brunt of the virus is because the state took mitigation efforts like lockdowns so early on. Masks are another mitigation effort. Viruses do not always simply disappear after a few months.

Anyway, Dodd “clarified”:

“I was by no means minimizing deaths that have been caused by this virus. And I feel for their loved ones,” she explained via an Instagram video, noting that she was wearing a mask before she sat down to eat. “However, Orange County has 133 deaths out of 3 million people, much lower than most. I felt encouraged and excited that people were out and about and there was some sense of normalcy.”

Suuuuure. [Us Weekly]