De Niro gives Fallon's Christmas trio an operatic finish

Ariana Grande and Ben Stiller join the monologue interruption as their Focker-In-Law visit spreads across songs, confessions and a soap-opera spoof.

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The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon Story of November 10, 2026Trari Newsroom

Why this story? The video opened at a pace of 325,803 views a day, 13 times a normal first day on this channel (24,806).

Robert De Niro, Ben Stiller and Ariana Grande Interrupt Jimmy's Monologue with Christmas Cheer

Jimmy Fallon mentions the arrival of the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree and says it makes him want to sing. Help arrives from backstage: Ariana Grande, Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro, ready to turn his monologue into a holiday sketch.

Grande starts "O Christmas Tree," trading lines with Stiller before De Niro delivers a sustained, operatic closing belt. The trio bows, and Fallon gives the unexpected vocalist his due: "Amazing! What a voice!"

The Short passed 320,000 views before its first full day, running at roughly thirteen times the show's usual start for that format. In the comments, viewers keep returning to the trio's family-like grouping. Others pick out Grande giggling when Stiller sings, or mentally recast the performers as their screen characters: Glinda, Madagascar's Alex the lion and Shark Tale's Don Lino.

There is a movie-family connection behind the gathering, too. Stiller and De Niro played anxious prospective son-in-law Greg Focker and intimidating father Jack Byrnes in Meet the Parents (2000). Their separate Tonight Show interview introduces Grande to that screen family for Focker-In-Law and covers filming an intense Heimlich maneuver scene. That interview also drew an unusually fast audience for the show's regular-length uploads.

The visit extends beyond the interview chair. The guests play True Confessions with Fallon, interrogating one another's stories, and appear in "My Family's Money," a fictional soap opera whose director is rather too fond of dramatic slow claps.

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What viewers say

If you close your eyes you'll hear Alex the Lion (Ben Stiller Madagascar), Don Lino (Robert De Niro Shark Tale), and Glinda (Ariana Grande Wicked) singing 😊
@violetvain.vv19See it on YouTube
ariana giggling every time ben started to sing 😭😭😭
@sapphicspearsSee it on YouTube
They’re like a family
@TristanGirondaSee it on YouTube

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