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| Greg Gutfeld |
The episode gained 484,000 viewers in the three days after its initial broadcast, boosting its total viewership to 2,196,000—a 28% increase over the live-plus-same-day figures. This marks the highest-rated non-sports-delayed episode of The Tonight Show since December 4, 2020, when Barack Obama was a guest.
The 28% delayed-viewing spike is notable, surpassed only by the show’s premiere on February 17, 2014 (34%), and a September 9, 2015, episode featuring Justin Timberlake, Ellen DeGeneres, and Macklemore & Ryan Lewis (32%).
For context, The Tonight Show’s season-to-date average delayed-viewing increase is just 5.4%.
Gutfeld and Fallon avoided political topics and the cancellation of Stephen Colbert’s Late Show during their interview. On his own show, Gutfeld!, on August 8, 2025, Gutfeld dismissed expectations of confrontation, saying, “I went on the show for the same reason I started [my own] show. Late night needs more fun. I was a gracious guest to a nice guy.”Despite the ratings boost, The Tonight Show trailed The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in overall average viewers for the hour. However, updated numbers show Fallon’s show outperformed Colbert’s from 12:15 a.m. to 12:29 a.m., during Gutfeld’s interview segment.