Jimmy Fallon Once Accidentally Kissed Michael Jordan on the Lips: 'I Thought I Was Gonna Die'
Michael Jordan and Jimmy Fallon once shared an intimate moment — and it wasn’t exactly intentional.
While sneaker shopping with Complex‘s Joe La Puma at Flight Club in New York City, Fallon, 45, revealed in the outlet’s video series that he once kissed the basketball icon, 57, by accident.
“I had a very awkward run-in with Michael Jordan,” he recounted to La Puma. “I was at a golf charity event with [Derek] Jeter, and so I was playing with those guys. … We were at some nightclub at the end of the night, and Derek’s like, ‘Hey Jimmy, do you know Michael?’ “
He continued, “And I go, ‘Yeah, I know you.’ And I went to say what’s up, and I went to give him a kiss on the cheek and he went to give me a kiss on this cheek and we both like kissed on the lips.”
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In the moment, the late night talk show host admitted, “I thought I was gonna die.”
Luckily, there were no hard feelings with the former athlete, as Fallon said, “He grabbed me and he goes, ‘It’s okay.’ “
The awkwardness though, Fallon joked, is lingering.
“I saw him a couple months ago at a restaurant … we kinda had a look,” teased the comedian, adding. “He knows what happened.”
The biggest takeaway? Jordan is a “great kisser,” laughed Fallon.
RELATED: Michael Jordan Cries as He Remembers Kobe Bryant: When He ‘Died, a Piece of Me Died’
On Monday, Jordan made headlines when he eulogized Kobe Bryant and the late Lakers star’s daughter Gianna Bryant at a memorial in Los Angeles.
Jordan told the gathered crowd, “I’m grateful to be here to honor Gigi and celebrate the gift that Kobe gave us all.”
Continued Jordan, “What he accomplished as a basketball player, as a businessman and a storyteller and as a father. In the game of basketball, and life as a parent, Kobe left nothing in the tank. He left it all on the floor.”
“It may be a surprise to people that Kobe and I were very close friends,” the NBA star said of the athlete, who was killed in a Jan. 26 helicopter crash. “He was like a little brother. Everyone always wanted to talk about the comparisons between he and I. I just wanted to talk about Kobe.”
