‘Finding Your Roots’ Preview: Jeff Goldblum Reveals How His Mom Helped Him Fight A Bully

Jeff Goldblum recalls in this EXCLUSIVE 'Finding Your Roots' preview how his mom taught him to take care of bullies and one incident where his mom helped him out at Hebrew school.

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Jeff Goldblum didn’t have the easiest time in school. He admits in this EXCLUSIVE preview of the Jan. 21 episode of Finding Your Roots that he was “having trouble” with a boy named David Schwartz at Hebrew school back in the day. David continuously gave him a “rough time.” His mom told him that he needed to learn to fight and she’d help him out with that. With Jeff’s mom, the “element of surprise” was a big thing.

They practiced together and Jeff revealed that David was always with his friend Barry. Jeff’s mom told him not to “worry” about Barry. She’d take care of him. His mom drove him to Hebrew school and held Barry back as Jeff took care of David. Jeff even “loosened a tooth” when he punched David. When host Henry Louis Gates Jr. asked Jeff whether or not he got in trouble, Jeff quipped: “Nobody tattled because I had a story to tell. He had done this to me. I was righteously standing up for myself, something like that.”

The sixth season of Finding Your Roots features other new guests like Melissa McCarthy, Jordan Peele, Issa Rae, Justina Machado, Sasheer Zamata, Isabella Rossellini, Anjelica Huston, Gayle King, Nancy Pelosi, RuPaul, Zac Posen, Terry Gross, Marc Maron, Jeff Goldblum, Eric Stonestreet, Queen Latifah, Jeffrey Wright, Sigourney Weaver, Amy Ryan, Sterling K. Brown, Jon Batiste, Diane von Furstenberg, and more.

The new season premiered in fall 2019 and will continue until fall 2020. The new episodes will feature new guests and re-mixed thematic combinations of former participants’ stories. After 8 weeks of new episodes in early 2020, the show will return in fall 2020 with 6 additional new episodes. Finding Your Roots airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. on PBS.