According to two current and 14 former employees, The Tonight Show has been a toxic workplace for years — far outside the boundaries of what’s considered normal in the high-pressure world of late-night TV. They say the ugly environment behind the scenes starts at the top with Fallon’s erratic behavior, and has trickled down to its ever-changing leadership teams — nine showrunners in the past nine years — who seemingly don’t know how to say no to Jimmy. Former employees describe The Tonight Show as a tense and “pretty glum atmosphere,” with some alleging they were belittled and intimidated by their bosses, including Fallon himself. Employees describe being afraid of Fallon’s “outbursts” and unexpected, inconsistent behavior. Many of these staffers voiced their concerns through HR complaints, but problems at The Tonight Show persisted.

Seven former employees say their mental health was impacted by their alleged experiences working at The Tonight Show. These staffers say it was commonplace to hear people joking about “wanting to kill themselves,” and that they would refer to guests’ dressing rooms in the office as “crying rooms” because that’s where they would go to let out their emotions when they were upset with their alleged mistreatment.

[This may be unaccessible to some readers, so if that’s the case, go to the Daily Caller for a pretty decent recap. According to their read, Rolling Stone couldn’t find a single staffer with a positive take on working for Fallon, not even with more than 50 sources on or off the record. One has to wonder how many of these are writers on strike; RS refers to the sources as “staffers,” which is generic enough to keep us guessing. Given that their lead anecdote has to do with the script, I’d guess at least a couple of these are writers, past and present, with perhaps other axes to grind. Jerry Seinfeld went on the record to explicitly rebut one particular allegation, in fact. But still, it’s tough to imagine that this explains everything in this article. — Ed]