Jimmy Fallon Reveals He Almost Wanted To Be A Priest When He Was Younger

No way! It’s hard to believe that Jimmy Fallon possibly couldn’t have become the late night talk show host that we’ve all come to love on The Tonight Show. But, during a recent appearance at the The New Yorker Festival, the 44-year-old comedian said that he actually wanted to be a priest when he was younger.

“I loved it. I loved the whole idea of it. I loved dressing up. I loved the smell of incense. I mean, I loved the whole idea,” he said, according to Page Six. Jimmy also revealed that his colleague and the former host of The Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert, was an altar boy in his younger days, too.

Apparently, Jimmy and Stephen, 54, loved being in the church so much that he said they’ve since talked about “just showing up to a random Mass around the city, and just reliving our altar-boy days.” Jimmy then added, “We might still do it.”

Jimmy’s love for the church first started with his grandfather. In a previous interview with NPR’s Fresh Air, he revealed that he became religious because of his family. “My grandfather was very religious, so I used to go to Mass with him at like 6:45 in the morning, serve Mass. And then you made money, too, if you did weddings and funerals,” he said. “You’d get like five bucks. And so I go ‘OK, I can make money too.’ I go, ‘This could be a good deal for me.’ I thought I had the calling.”

Although Jimmy might have had “the calling,” he luckily decided to pursue a career in comedy instead. He also said he now doesn’t go to church as much as he used to because he said “it’s gotten gigantic.” 

“There’s a band there now, and you got to, you have to hold hands with people through the whole Mass now, and I don’t like doing that,” Jimmy explained. “I mean, it used to be the shaking hands piece was the only time you touched each other.”