Now Fallon and the NBC talk franchise might also be accused of making a shrewd move.
The episode from Thursday averaged 1.71 million viewers, the most for a regular “Tonight Show” episode since Dec. 19, 2023, LateNighter reported off the Nielsen ratings. (That number has been surpassed in that time period by episodes that follow football games on the network and the Olympic opening ceremony.)
The audience represented a 57% increase over its 2025 average, according to the Nielsen data reported by Fox News.
LateNighter surmised that the controversial “Gutfeld!” host “brought his Fox News audience with him.” It noted that while fellow guests the Jonas Brothers might have also contributed to the viewership, watchers increased during Gutfeld’s segment.
The video of the interview is also by far the most-watched in the last several days on the YouTube page of the “The Tonight Show.”
The two avoided politics in their chummy chat.
“Fallon has always been a ‘yes to everyone’ man. The guy’s got almost zero convictions,” one person wrote.
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Neither “The Tonight Show” nor NBC immediately returned a HuffPost request for comment.
