At this point in their careers, both Billie Eilish and her brother Finneas have been on The Tonight Show on numerous occasions. Their first time on the show, though, was back in March 2018, when Finneas joined Eilish to perform “Bellyache.” That was a major moment in both of their careers, but ever since then, something about it hasn’t sat right with Finneas: He’s pretty sure Questlove flipped him off during the show. On last night’s Tonight Show, Finneas went ahead and addressed that with Fallon and The Roots’ drummer.
At the end of the interview, Fallon set Finneas up to tell the story and Finneas noted, “I came for some answers tonight, if that’s OK.” Finneas went on to give some background about the performance and the lead-up to it. He spoke about how Fallon kindly greeted him and and Eilish backstage and about how despite his nerves, he felt the performance went well. He then described Fallon and The Roots sending the show to commercial after the performance, saying, “I’m clapping, I’m looking over, and you guys do your crescendo at the end. I’m just smiling and clapping and looking at Quest, and Quest put his sticks in one hand, and he pointed right at me, and he flipped me the bird.”
At this point, a shocked and confused Questlove chimed in with, “Wait, what?”
Finneas continued, “And then they all left. They all left and I was standing there clapping and Questlove, who I had never met, had just flipped me the bird, and everybody left.”
Questlove then flashed a peace sign and asked, “You sure I didn’t do this?” Finneas quipped, “It was not peace or love.” He continued, “So I’m shocked, and then your producer goes, ‘We’re going to just do the song one more time.’ I think they aired the second take and I look like I’ve seen a ghost.”
He then sought a response from Questlove by prompting, “I’m just curious.” Questlove had no clue what to say, so he just shrugged and made some confused grunts. Everybody was laughing throughout this whole story, though, so it seems some sort of friendly misunderstanding was at play here.
Watch Finneas’ interview above. He also performed “Only A Lifetime” on the show, so check that out below.
