After “Revenge of the Sith,” Jar Jar’s story gets darker. And it’s not because of the theory that Jar Jar is secretly a Sith Lord. Because Palpatine manipulates him as a tool to gain more power, many believe that the Gungan representative is partially responsible for the rise of the Empire — including members of his species.
In the canon Star Wars book “Aftermath: Empire’s End,” it’s revealed that Jar Jar was once again exiled from his Gungan home because people despised his actions. He becomes a clown in the capital city of Theed — one of the Naboo locations you can visit in real life — juggling and performing street tricks to entertain children and earn a living. He continues in this line of work for decades, as “Empire’s End” shows him years after the Battle of Yavin.
It’s unclear what happens to Jar Jar after this point in the timeline, but there’s no reason he wouldn’t be alive during the New Republic era. That leaves the door open for a potential return in the future, especially now that the overall fan sentiment toward the character seems much kinder than it once was. It’s upsetting that Jar Jar received such undue blame for Palaptine’s crimes, but it’s also an undeniably interesting arc for Star Wars to introduce. Tears of the clown, indeed.
