Louis C.K. reveals how he once hindered Jimmy Fallon’s career

Usually, show business stories on late night talk shows are a lot of backslapping, “I’m great, you’re great” love-fests. Not so with Louis C.K., who drew back the curtain a little bit on Tuesday’s “Tonight Show” and revealed how he once squashed Jimmy Fallon’s chances of getting hired on the the short-lived “Dana Carvey Show” back in the 1990s.

The star of FX’s “Louie” revealed to Fallon that he was the head writer of the show, which starred the former “Saturday Night Live” performer, but also featured Steve Carell, Stephen Colbert and Robert Smigel. Fallon, then a young unknown, came in to audition with a set of Troll dolls and a guitar.

“We had our meeting about who’s going to be on the show and your name came up and all the women on the staff said ‘He has to be on,’” C.K. said. “‘That guy’s going to be a huge star.’ And me and this guy Dino Stamatopoulos... we were both like ‘Never, never him. I will quit.’”

He continued, “I think I actually said, ‘I will quit the show if you hire that kid. Absolutely not.’”

Why?

“Because you had all your hair, you were in shape, you were a young kid,” C.K. said. “And I was already kind of sweaty and balding. I was depressed and it was pure jealousy.”

“I torpedoed your chances,” he said. “I really went to bat against you.”

In the end, things worked out fine for Fallon -- hey, the guy hosts “The Tonight Show” -- but in a perverse way, C.K. would like a thank you.

“Everything that happens on your path leads to where you are,” C.K. said. “So if you got ‘The Dana Carvey Show’... you would have been in some ditch.”

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