Considering the frequency in which random and terrifying events seemingly happen on a daily basis, it’s pretty easy to forget that, just two years ago, the entire state of Hawaii descended into chaos after a false missile alarm made the island inhabitants fear for their lives. But there’s one celebrity who remembers it very vividly, and that’s because he was there: Jim Carrey.
While dialing into The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon from a “remote cabin in Montana,” the rubber-faced Carrey revealed that he was driving in Hawaii with his daughter when his assistant called him crying to warn him about the impending missile strike. After realizing that he’d never get off the island in time, Carrey pulled over and walked down to the ocean for what he thought was the final moments of his life:
“I just decided to go over a list of gratitudes… I could not stop thinking about wonderful things that have happened to me and blessings that I’ve had,” he said, adding that “it was lovely” and he finally “got to a point of grace with two minutes to spare” when he learned the missile was a false alarm.
“All I was planning to do was close my eyes and be thankful cause it’s been a good ride,” he revealed.
As the story goes, it took 40 minutes for the Hawaii officials to get a message out that the missile warning was a false alarm, and it turns out the whole thing was the result of an employee pressing the wrong button. 2020 might be a beast, but 2018 was pretty wild, too.
Carrey was on hand to promote his new book, Memoirs and Misinformation, which has already hit the New York Times Bestseller’s list, and is a whirlwind ride of semi-true stories from the comedian’s life thinly disguised as absurd riffs on Hollywood. More importantly, Carrey tells Fallon that he hopes it’s the kind of book that people read then “rip their nipples off and scream my name.” That’s one way to promote a project.
(Via The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon & Hollywood Reporter)