Ariana Grande, Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro Crash The Tonight Show Monologue
Ariana Grande made a surprise appearance on The Tonight Show on Sunday, November 8, joining Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro to interrupt Jimmy Fallon's opening monologue. The three of them were there to promote Focker-In-Law, a holiday comedy due in cinemas soon.
The moment came early in the show. Fallon was mid-monologue when the three guests appeared and started singing "O Christmas Tree." According to Deadline, the performance was part of a special episode that followed NBC's Sunday Night Football game between the Chicago Bears and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. That timing put the show in front of a large football audience.
The song was shared out between them. Grande and Stiller traded lines back and forth, and De Niro lip-synched the final line, as USA Today reported. NBC's own video of the bit is titled "Robert De Niro, Ben Stiller and Ariana Grande Interrupt Jimmy's Monologue with Christmas Cheer." The performance also celebrated that year's Rockefeller Tree, the large decorated tree lit each winter in New York City, according to posts from Fallon's show on Facebook and Instagram.
The reason for the visit is the film. Focker-In-Law is a sequel to Little Fockers, which came out in 2010. It is the latest chapter in the Meet the Parents series, which began with the 2000 comedy and follows the awkward family clashes between Stiller's character and De Niro's. Universal Pictures lists the release date as November 25, 2026.
Grande plays the girlfriend of Stiller's character's son. She told the show that the film is her first movie role since Wicked: Part One and Wicked: Part Two, the two-part musical adaptation that starred her as Glinda. Universal describes her as a Grammy winner and an Oscar nominee.
For fans of the three stars, the segment offered a quick look at how the cast gets along. For anyone else, it was a short, silly bit of holiday television that fit neatly into a Sunday night. Stiller, De Niro and Grande will return to the film's publicity over the coming weeks, ahead of its opening.
The film opens on November 25.
