It’s been over a week since Jimmy Fallon’s controversial interview with controversial fighter Conor McGregor, and he has remained silent throughout.
For PR expert Laura Perkes, who has extensive experience in crisis management, his hush is no surprise as she spoke to Metro about Fallon’s strategy to wait out the controversy.
Since the Tonight Show host’s friendly chat with the disgraced UFC fighter, droves of people (including Yellowjackets star Christina Ricci) have taken to social media to condemn the TV personality for giving McGregor a platform.
The Irish mixed martial artist was found liable in a civil case for the 2018 rape of Nikita Hand in a Dublin hotel, for which she had to seek medical attention.
Her injuries included bruising on all four limbs, a bloodied scratch to her breast, tenderness to her neck, and a possible tear in her vagina from a tampon wedged so far up that it had to be removed using forceps.
He has maintained that the encounter was consensual and subsequently lost his appeal against the ruling. Now, 37-year-old McGregor is attempting to stage a career comeback with UFC and appeared on the late-night host’s show to talk all about it.
The outrage across social media at his decision to happily support McGregor’s return to the spotlight has maintained momentum with countless TikTok videos blasting him going viral, lengthy Reddit threads and promises to boycott the show.
Many of his naysayers have claimed the show, and Fallon by extension, are normalising violence against women, betraying victims of sexual assault and proving men are allowed to get away with this behaviour with little consequence.
Explaining why the 51-year-old talkshow host has remained quiet, Perkes said: ‘They’re doing reputation management 101. The interview happened, it aired, people are not happy, so rather than perpetuating it themselves, I think they’re then making sure that their social media is holding a more positive light.
‘They’re showing clips from past guests, and again, there are so many episodes from the next day or the day after, people have moved on because there’s been another thing.’
She noted that she doesn’t know how much say Fallon has in who he chats to, [but] ‘it’s his job as the host to provide a brilliant interview.’
‘They probably had to agree: “These are the seven questions.” It’s a lifestyle show, it’s an entertainment show, so I think they wanted to keep it light and entertaining, despite the facts of McGregor’s background.’
Although in the past a remorseful statement might have been the norm when handling a situation as grave as this, Perkes noted that silence has become an even more effective technique.
‘In the age of social media, everything keeps moving so quickly, even a statement can sometimes seem delayed. By the time the statement’s been written, approved and announced, it’s been a day or two,’ she explained.
As such, it’s easier to ‘turn the other cheek and not worry about it’.
‘For celebrities and their teams to be like: “These newspapers are tomorrow’s fish and chip wrapper, we’ll monitor the consequences and go from there.”‘
In short, the strategy is looking to be ‘let’s wait for it to blow over’.
In fact, Perkes went as far as to say that not only will this furore likely not have any ‘career repercussions’ for the veteran anchor, but it could even draw in new viewers.
She explained: ‘In any situation, you’ll have people who answer with their feet. They move away from the show, they’ll blast it on social media.
‘But then there are other people who didn’t know about Jimmy Fallon, or they didn’t know The Tonight Show, and they’ll look at clips on TikTok, and realise: “Oh, actually, he’s actually a really fun guy” and look for his interviews.’
Perkes also acknowledged that often it is ‘white men protecting other white men’.
In fact, this is not the first time Fallon has faced controversy for acting buddy-buddy with a controversial figure. He previously playfully interviewed Donald Trump.
As Perkes continued: ‘His career is safe in that respect. The algorithm changes so fast, there’s so much content because they know it will just blow over, because that’s the world we’re living in these days.
‘The fact that there are so many people talking about it [right now], he will see if it’s only a good thing. It makes him relevant; it puts him in the limelight.’
Not only does it look unlikely that he’ll lose his audience for the McGregor interview, but it’s unlikely other celebrities will be deterred from the sofa either (aside from, perhaps, those who have actively called him out like Ricci).
‘Let’s face it, celebrities exist to draw attention to themselves, the film they’re in, the album they’re about to release, or the tour they’re about to go on.
‘Their press team will have to weigh up the pros and cons that being on this show will deliver, and they will probably say there are more positives,’ she concluded.
Metro has reached out to Jimmy Fallon’s representative and NBCUniversal for comment.