Jimmy Fallon’s Regular Drinking Spot in New York City Was a Swanky Private Club

This week, Jimmy Fallon apologized to his Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon team after a Rolling Stone exposé said he had fostered a hostile work atmosphere by, among other things, showing up to the 30 Rock studio smelling like alcohol in 2017. But Page Six reported that over the years, the private Friars Club was a safe space for the gregarious host to let his hair down without making it to the gossip pages. As per reports, Fallon has an infamous reputation for heavy drinking and occasional high-spirited scrapes at other downtown watering holes like Niagara and the now-defunct Siberia.

Reports said that Fallon liked to party with his writing team in areas that were off-limits to anyone else. In fact, it was widely believed that NBC's brass came up with the Jimmy management plan. However, on Friday, a representative from NBC informed the outlet that wasn't the case. A Friar's insider confirmed, "He did bring his writers to the club and they’d have a private room, but I don’t know if that was organic, as he’d hang out there anyway—he gifted the writers annual memberships, so it makes sense that’s where they’d hang —or if NBC encouraged it. Could have been a win-win for both."

According to the article published by Rolling Stone, current and former workers of The Tonight Show said that Jimmy Fallon's drunken, dismissive, nasty, and unpredictable behavior had led several colleagues to consider suicide. According to the employees, the host's uncertainty was reflected in the show's revolving door of nine different showrunners since 2014. A former employee confessed, "Nobody told Jimmy, ‘No.’ Everybody walked on eggshells, especially showrunners. You never knew which Jimmy we were going to get and when he was going to throw a hissy fit. Look how many showrunners went so quickly. We know they didn’t last long." One of the ex-employees even went on to say, "I didn’t want to live anymore. I thought about taking my own life all the time. I knew deep down I would never actually do it, but in my head, I’m like, ‘Why do I think about this all the time?’"

The outlet also cited Tonight Show employees who said his hangovers set the tone for the day. One of the staff members said, "When something was wrong, we all knew how to behave afterward, which was just sort of avoid eye contact and don’t make another mistake." During the recent Zoom meeting, Fallon allegedly told staff it was 'embarrassing; and that he did not want "to create that type of atmosphere for the show." Fallon said, "Sorry if I embarrassed you and your family and friends… I feel so bad I can’t even tell you. I want the show to be fun, [it] should be inclusive to everybody. It should be the best show."