Things got atypically serious on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon Tuesday.
After he was filmed using a gay slur over the weekend, Jonah Hill apologized for his poor word choice during a Howard Stern radio interview. Later that night, he stressed his remorse on the NBC show.
"I'd actually like to address something, if that's OK to your audience," he told host Jimmy Fallon. The audience began to cheer, but the 30-year-old actor warned them, "Unfortunately, this isn't a joke."
The 22 Jump Street star then set the scene. "This weekend I was out with some friends and there was a paparazzi guy, and he was antagonizing me and calling me names, attacking me personally and my family personally, and I was genuinely hurt by this and made angry by this," Hill explained. "In response, I wanted to hurt him back and I said the most hurtful word that I could think of at that moment. I didn't mean this in the sense of the word. I didn't mean it in a homophobic way."
"I think that...sorry," Hill said, getting choked up. "I think that that doesn't matter. How you mean things doesn't matter. Words have weight and meaning. The word I chose was grotesque and no one deserves to say or hear words like that. I've been a supporter of the LGBTQ community my entire life, and I completely let the members of that community and everybody else down when I used a word like that this weekend. My heart's broken and I genuinely am deeply sorry to anybody who's ever been affected by that term in their life. I'm sorry and I don't deserve or expect your forgiveness, but what I ask is at home, if you're watching this and you're a young person especially, if someone says something that hurts you or angers you, use me as an example of what not to do. Don't respond with hatred or anger because you're just adding more ugliness to the world. And again, I am just so sorry."
Hill continued to take responsibility for the pain he may have caused, saying, "I know I'm usually funny and stuff, but this wasn't funny. It was stupid. I deserve the s--t that I'm going to get for it, you know?"
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