Jonah Hill apologizes on ‘The Tonight Show’ for homophobic outburst

No lip sync battles or silly games for “22 Jump Street” star Jonah Hill when he dropped by “The Tonight Show” on Tuesday. Hill immediately used his time on the show to address and publicly apologize for the derogatory and homophobic comments he made to a paparazzo over the weekend.

In the video, which was posted on TMZ on Tuesday, Hill is seen walking down a street in the Larchmont neighborhood of Los Angeles followed by paparazzi making comments about his shorts. At the end of the video, Hill tosses off the derogatory comments to the videographer, who responds, “Oh, a real bully!”

The fallout was immediate and later that day, Hill was on the Howard Stern show apologizing. But since he’s in the middle of promoting a big summer movie, he didn’t stop with just one apology. He was on alongside Jimmy Fallon later in the day, offering a heartfelt apology for his words.

“I didn’t mean this in a homophobic way,” Hill said, appearing to become emotional. “I think that doesn’t matter. ... Words have weight and meaning. And the word I chose was grotesque.”

He apologized to members of the LGBT community and continued: “My heart is broken. And I genuinely am deeply sorry to anyone who’s ever been affected by that term in their life.”

For his part, Fallon appeared slightly uncomfortable at the moment of sincerity on a show that works hard to be as silly and inconsequential as possible at all times. But he managed to accidentally step into a joke when he was reassuring the actor, telling him, “It’s good that you came out...”

The audience laughed and the band gave a rimshot. Mood immediately lightened.

“This guy’s the host of ‘The Tonight Show’ for a reason,” Hill said.

And with that, they were on to less serious matters.