Taylor Swift made an unscheduled appearance on "The Tonight Show" on Monday night to perform a song from her new album and helped honor Jimmy Fallon's mother who passed away last week.
“As some of you know, my mother, Gloria, passed away recently,” a very emotional Fallon said at the top of his broadcast on Monday. “She was the best audience. She was the one I was always trying to make laugh. She was such a fan of the show, and everything I did.”
During a tribute to his mother, Fallon told a story about how his mom would hold his hand as a kid, and would squeeze his hand three times and tell him that she loved him.
Near the end of the show, Swift performed "New Year's Day." The lyrics include a line about squeezing a loved one's hand three times:
Mike DiCenzo, a writer for the show, shared the story behind Taylor's emotional performance in a series of tweets: