{"id":851865,"date":"2026-09-18T07:32:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T07:32:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/851865\/"},"modified":"2026-09-18T07:32:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T07:32:11","slug":"jimmy-fallon-thought-he-was-dying-after-doing-chicagos-polar-plunge-nbc-chicago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/851865\/","title":{"rendered":"Jimmy Fallon thought he was dying after doing Chicago\u2019s Polar Plunge \u2013 NBC Chicago"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jimmy Fallon thought he was dying after dipping into the icy waters of Lake Michigan during Chicago’s Polar Plunge a few years back, he told NBC Chicago’s Stefan Holt during a one-on-one chat this week. <\/p>\n

“I got out and I heard bagpipes, and that’s what Irish people hear when they die,” the host of NBC’s The Tonight Show said. <\/p>\n

Holt traveled to New York City this week to talk with Fallon about a range of topics, from roller coasters to pizza and even a story about a day the comedian was in Chicago that he thought could be his last. <\/p>\n

Fallon told Holt that back in March 2014 he came to Chicago to participate in the Polar Plunge, an annual Special Olympics fundraiser event.<\/p>\n

“That was the scariest thing that ever happened to me in my entire lifetime,” he said.<\/p>\n

Footage from his plunge into the lake shows it was a frosty season, with large banks of snow and ice visible on the beach near where participants stepped into the water. <\/p>\n

Fallon did the plunge in his suit, and his expression walking out of the freezing water gives a clear picture of how he was feeling. <\/p>\n

The bag pipes also weren’t part of his imagination — they were the Shannon Rovers Irish Pipe Band, a staple of the annual event. <\/p>\n

\"<\/p>\n

“I saw the other side,” he said. “That’s how it ended for me. I froze to death in Lake Michigan.”<\/p>\n

When asked if he’d rather do a shot of Jeppson’s Mal\u00f6rt or plunge into Lake Michigan again, Fallon opted for the shot. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jimmy Fallon thought he was dying after dipping into the icy waters of Lake Michigan during Chicago’s Polar…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":851866,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[157,88,92],"class_list":["post-851865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-chicago","tag-entertainment","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=851865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851865\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/851866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=851865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=851865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=851865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}