Jamie Foxx Defends Jimmy Fallon In Wake Of Blackface Backlash, ‘We Got Bigger Fish To Fry’
Jimmy Fallon publicly apologized on Tuesday for a clip that recently resurfaced showing him portraying a character in blackface. However, in a time where “#JimmyFallonIsOverParty” was trending on Twitter and people were calling for The Tonight Show host to be “canceled,” he found a famous and influential ally to come to his defense — Jamie Foxx.
Foxx took to Instagram to speak out about the incident, commenting on E! News‘ post about the situation.
“He was doing an impression of chris rock. It wasn’t black face. We comedians I know it’s a tough time right now. But this one is a stretch. On a show called in living color we played every race Let this one go. We got bigger fish to fry… #changecourse,” Foxx commented.
The impression was part of a sketch Fallon performed as a cast member of Saturday Night Live and originally aired in 2000. In it, he portrayed Chris Rock, who met with Regis Philbin (Darrell Hammond) and discussed black contestants going on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, a game show that Philbin hosted at the time. The sketch saw Fallon wearing blackface and a wig, with a gap tooth like Rock’s.
Fallon has since apologized for the performance, stating he never should have agreed to the role and thanking people for holding him accountable.
However, some Twitter users haven’t jumped on the “cancel Fallon” bandwagon and have defended the comedian.
“No one is asking y’all to cancel @jimmyfallon,” one Twitter user wrote, per E! News.
“However, what we are asking from Jimmy is an acknowledgment to his use of Blackface, why did he do it and an apology to Black people for donning such a racist, oppressive and downright disgusting overt display of symbolic racism.”
This support and request for an apology seems to be evident under Foxx’s Instagram comment as well, which has proven to be popular with users of the social media platform. In less than a day, the actor’s comment has been liked over 15,200 times, and 120 individuals responded to his message, with most agreeing with his sentiment.
One person remarked that African Americans deal with more pressing problems than a supposedly offensive comedy sketch, while another fan thanked Foxx for his reply, saying that Saturday Night Live‘s network and producers should be blamed for approving the sketch in the first place.
Others agreed with Foxx’s assertion that they had “bigger fish to fry,” with many users pointing to the most recent case of alleged police brutality against a black man, George Floyd, as the cause people should be getting worked up over.
