Welcome to the Fallon Files, a weekly-ish series chronicling only the lowest lows of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
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Today we stray from our regularly scheduled programming to discuss something much more pressing than Margot Robbie and Bobby Moynihan, who were guests on the Tonight Show last night (nobody cares). We cannot ignore this any longer: What is going on with Jimmy Fallon’s hair?
As we all know, Jimmy grew a patchy beard before coming back for his tenth season. It looks really bad, but it’s only a distraction from what’s going on a few inches upward. Take a look at this video from last night’s episode, in which Jimmy is promoting the show’s upcoming foray into Fortnite (brought to you by Samsung Galaxy Power Boost).
If you possibly can, I am asking you to look past the beard and the completely dead eyes and toward his hairline. Computer, enhance.
That swoosh of hair is cutting his forehead at a cool 45 degrees… I thought this looked odd, but because all Jimmy content tends to fall out of my brain like sand in a sieve, I could not remember if he has always looked like this. Upon further research, it became obvious that he hasn’t, and has in fact spent the last four months growing out his mop. For comparison, here is what he looked like a year ago:
This is the classic Fallon cut. It’s boyish and forehead-revealing. He kept this look up until May of this year, when eagle-eyed viewers might have started to notice some growth.
Growing out your hair is hard, and it appears that his stylist didn’t know how to work with Jimmy’s new tresses. They were going to need a stronger pomade.
In June, they overcorrected. This is too stiff. It’s giving Mommy’s very best boy. Jimmy spent the rest of the summer growing it out, and by September it looked like this:
Mamma mia! That’s a look. Unfortunately for his haters, this tousled ‘do only lasted for one episode. I imagine Papa Lorne Michaels told him he looked ridiculous without a part in his hair, and Jimmy quickly fixed things.
Now he looks like this:
What does it all mean? Well, the way I see it there are two options: Either he’s getting divorced (sad) or he’s losing his hair and was told that if he grows it out they could hide it better (funny). There are no other reasons a 48-year-old man would grow out his hair.
There is a secret, third option, though. As one of my coworkers asked, “Did he get a wig?” I think hair plugs are more likely, but if you have any intel on Jimmy’s new luscious locks, please email tips@gawker.com.