Aug. 8, 2026

Jay Leno: Everything Except the Tonight Show

Jay Leno says he never spent a dollar of his NBC salary, he lived off standup income the whole time, even while hosting the most watched late night show in America. Johnny Mac looks at everything about Jay Leno that isn't the Tonight Show: the Comedy Store years, the David Letterman friendship and the edgier version of Jay a generation of comedy fans first met on that show, the Big Dog Garage in Burbank that grew from seventeen thousand to a hundred and twenty-two thousand square feet, the 1907 White Steam Car that caught fire and put him in a burn center at seventy-two, the motorcycle crash three months later, and the story of Mavis, his wife of forty-five years, now living with advanced dementia, who he makes lunch for every day and comes home to every night. The Tonight Show chapter gets its own episode this fall. Today is everything else.

"How many cars does Jay Leno own?"
"What happened to Jay Leno's wife Mavis?"
"Does Jay Leno have a wife with dementia?"
"Did Jay Leno really never spend his Tonight Show salary?"
"What is Jay Leno's net worth?"
"How did Jay Leno meet David Letterman?"
"What is Jay Leno's Garage show about?"
"What was Jay Leno like on Letterman in the 1980s?"
"Is Jay Leno still doing standup comedy?"
"What happened in Jay Leno's garage fire 2022?"
"Who is Mavis Leno and what does she have dementia?"
"What did Jay Leno say about taking care of his wife?"


Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/daily-comedy-news-with-johnny-mac--4522158/support.

Daily Comedy News is hosted by Johnny Mac and releases every weekday. Subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or your favorite app. Part of the Caloroga Shark Media network. For transcripts and show notes visit www.dailycomedynews.com

Daily Comedy News with Johnny Mac is a daily podcast covering comedians, stand-up comedy, late night television, and the comedy industry. New episodes every morning. Follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

Contact John at John@thesharkdeck dot com

For Uninterrupted Listening, use the Apple Podcast App and click the banner that says Uninterrupted Listening. $4.99/month

John's Substack about media is free.

WEBVTT

1
00:00:03.200 --> 00:00:09.240
Kalaroga Shark Media.

2
00:00:10.400 --> 00:00:13.439
Happy Jay Leno Day. I'm Johnny Mack and the Saturday

3
00:00:13.519 --> 00:00:15.919
Deep Dives are back. Today we'll take a look at

4
00:00:16.000 --> 00:00:19.199
Jay Leno. It is Jay Leno Day. Jay hosted the

5
00:00:19.199 --> 00:00:21.879
Tonight Show at NBC Studios in Burbank for more than

6
00:00:21.920 --> 00:00:25.120
twenty years. The city's home to his famous garage, hosting

7
00:00:25.120 --> 00:00:27.600
more than one hundred rare cars. He regularly performs at

8
00:00:27.600 --> 00:00:30.800
Flapper's Comedy Club in Burbank, and he is being honored

9
00:00:30.839 --> 00:00:33.479
by the city. It is Jay Leno Day now for

10
00:00:33.520 --> 00:00:36.399
this deep dive. In particular, I'm going to skip the

11
00:00:36.399 --> 00:00:38.439
Tonight show, so we're not gonna talk Tonight Show and

12
00:00:38.479 --> 00:00:41.840
we're not gonna talk Conan. The reason is this fall,

13
00:00:41.880 --> 00:00:44.439
I'm going to do a series about the late night

14
00:00:44.600 --> 00:00:46.880
hosts and we will cover that in detail, so we're

15
00:00:46.920 --> 00:00:48.880
not going to bog down on that. Today we will

16
00:00:48.920 --> 00:00:51.479
talk about the man that I jokingly call the worst

17
00:00:51.479 --> 00:00:53.920
person who ever lived, because for some reason, people don't

18
00:00:53.960 --> 00:00:57.200
like this guy I do. Jay Leno has said multiple

19
00:00:57.240 --> 00:01:00.159
interviews over the years consistently enough that it's cloing not

20
00:01:00.240 --> 00:01:02.560
a bit. He never spent a dollar of the money

21
00:01:02.640 --> 00:01:05.120
NBC paid him for the Tonight Show, not one dollar.

22
00:01:05.719 --> 00:01:08.079
During that time, he was making somewhere between twenty and

23
00:01:08.239 --> 00:01:11.079
thirty million dollars a year, and yet he was living

24
00:01:11.079 --> 00:01:14.079
off his income from stand up. The NBC money went

25
00:01:14.120 --> 00:01:16.359
into the bank. Jay Leno toured on the weekends, kept

26
00:01:16.400 --> 00:01:19.000
doing clubs in theaters, and kept treating stand up as

27
00:01:19.000 --> 00:01:21.359
the actual job rather than the thing he used to

28
00:01:21.359 --> 00:01:24.079
do before TV, and he used that income for his

29
00:01:24.159 --> 00:01:27.680
operating budget for everything. The Tonight Show money sat there

30
00:01:27.719 --> 00:01:31.040
and accumulated. His fortune is now estimated at around four

31
00:01:31.120 --> 00:01:34.120
hundred and fifty million dollars. Jay Leno, underneath all the

32
00:01:34.200 --> 00:01:37.159
Late night stuff will cover this fall, is fundamentally a

33
00:01:37.200 --> 00:01:41.040
stand up comedian with an extraordinary work ethic, a strange

34
00:01:41.040 --> 00:01:44.439
and consuming passion for machines with engines, a husband of

35
00:01:44.519 --> 00:01:46.719
forty five plus years that is currently one of the

36
00:01:46.719 --> 00:01:49.319
more quietly moving stories in show business, and a guy

37
00:01:49.319 --> 00:01:51.959
with a financial philosophy that treats television as a bonus

38
00:01:52.120 --> 00:01:55.840
rather than his career. Understanding all that tells you more

39
00:01:55.879 --> 00:01:58.239
about Jay Leno than hosting The Tonight Show ever did.

40
00:01:58.519 --> 00:02:00.959
Born James Douglas Muir Lean I know April twenty eighth,

41
00:02:01.000 --> 00:02:04.560
nineteen fifty in New Rochelle, New York. Raised in Andover, Massachusetts,

42
00:02:04.640 --> 00:02:07.439
the son of an insurance salesman father of Italian descent

43
00:02:08.080 --> 00:02:10.719
and a Scottish mother who immigrated to the United States

44
00:02:10.719 --> 00:02:14.000
alone at eleven years old. His mother's response to his

45
00:02:14.039 --> 00:02:18.120
comedy ambitions was, Jay, we're not show people. His fifth

46
00:02:18.159 --> 00:02:20.360
grade teacher wrote in his report card that if Jay

47
00:02:20.400 --> 00:02:22.719
Leno spent as much time studying as he did trying

48
00:02:22.719 --> 00:02:24.919
to be a comedian, he would be a pig star.

49
00:02:25.599 --> 00:02:28.719
Jay had dyslexia. The experience of being told repeatedly that

50
00:02:28.759 --> 00:02:30.840
you're not smart, of having to compensate for how your

51
00:02:30.919 --> 00:02:34.080
brain processes written language by developing other skills, by talking,

52
00:02:34.159 --> 00:02:36.719
by performing, by being funny enough that people paid attention

53
00:02:36.759 --> 00:02:39.599
to you all shaped Jay Leno. He went to Emerson

54
00:02:39.599 --> 00:02:42.840
College in Boston on a speech therapy degree. That makes

55
00:02:42.879 --> 00:02:45.000
more sense than it sounds when you think about somebody

56
00:02:45.000 --> 00:02:48.680
who struggled with written language and decided to master spoken language.

57
00:02:49.080 --> 00:02:52.039
He started a comedy club on campus. He was doing

58
00:02:52.080 --> 00:02:54.919
stand up in Boston clubs while still a student. After

59
00:02:54.960 --> 00:02:57.960
graduating in nineteen seventy three, Jay Leno moved to Los

60
00:02:57.960 --> 00:03:00.080
Angeles and spent the early years building an act in

61
00:03:00.120 --> 00:03:02.479
whatever rooms would have him. The comedy store, the improv,

62
00:03:02.560 --> 00:03:05.800
the small clubs. It was that short time post Richard

63
00:03:05.840 --> 00:03:09.400
pryor pre cable TV, jay Leno did three hundred nights

64
00:03:09.439 --> 00:03:12.280
a year. Do the math. That's roughly five shows a

65
00:03:12.319 --> 00:03:15.759
week every week of the calendar year. Fifty two times

66
00:03:15.800 --> 00:03:17.800
five gets you to two sixties. He got to double

67
00:03:17.879 --> 00:03:20.280
up some nights, and it was at the comedy store

68
00:03:20.319 --> 00:03:23.199
in those years where jay Leno met David Letterman. Letterman

69
00:03:23.319 --> 00:03:25.639
drove a red pickup from Indiana to la in nineteen

70
00:03:25.680 --> 00:03:28.120
seventy five, looking for his shot. Jay Leno had been

71
00:03:28.159 --> 00:03:30.719
out there three years and had established himself as one

72
00:03:30.719 --> 00:03:32.960
of the more comfortable and confident performers in the room.

73
00:03:33.439 --> 00:03:36.879
Jay Leno has described that encounter saying Letterman had genuinely

74
00:03:36.879 --> 00:03:39.680
funny material, really clever wordplay, the kind of writing that

75
00:03:39.719 --> 00:03:42.919
was immediately recognizable as something different. But he was awkward

76
00:03:42.960 --> 00:03:45.599
performing it, visibly uncomfortable on stage in a way that

77
00:03:45.680 --> 00:03:49.520
jay Leno wasn't. Letterman's version of that story describes jay

78
00:03:49.599 --> 00:03:53.039
Leno's stage confidence as something Dave genuinely envied and tried

79
00:03:53.039 --> 00:03:55.159
to understand, adding get up there and just be comfortable.

80
00:03:56.080 --> 00:03:57.919
Leto's answer, more or less was that stand up had

81
00:03:57.919 --> 00:03:59.560
always felt like a natural place to him, the room

82
00:03:59.560 --> 00:04:01.400
where he met, which is not a skill you can

83
00:04:01.439 --> 00:04:02.719
teach someone who doesn't have it.

84
00:04:03.400 --> 00:04:06.439
I'm originally from the United States, and the United States

85
00:04:06.479 --> 00:04:12.919
people hit a night. That's great, It's Freddy mentioned I

86
00:04:12.919 --> 00:04:13.560
have a slight call.

87
00:04:13.599 --> 00:04:14.639
I have to apologize for that.

88
00:04:15.319 --> 00:04:17.360
When I can't, I have. I've had it about two weeks.

89
00:04:17.839 --> 00:04:19.439
I went to the hospital over here, one of the

90
00:04:19.639 --> 00:04:22.199
large hospitals in California. I don't want to say the name.

91
00:04:23.480 --> 00:04:25.000
Just shows you what healthcare is in this date. This

92
00:04:25.040 --> 00:04:27.759
is absolutely true. I went in, man charged me forty dollars,

93
00:04:28.120 --> 00:04:30.560
gave me some pills to take, and on the way

94
00:04:30.560 --> 00:04:32.600
out as a doc, my throat is still really sort.

95
00:04:32.600 --> 00:04:34.680
Do you think I should have my tonsils out? And

96
00:04:34.800 --> 00:04:37.600
this man is a specialist, and I'm showing the best

97
00:04:37.639 --> 00:04:38.639
hospitals in California?

98
00:04:38.680 --> 00:04:41.000
Says to me, well, what do you think.

99
00:04:47.120 --> 00:04:48.959
It's? Watching the local news before I came in and

100
00:04:49.079 --> 00:04:51.240
I got to kick out a local newsman. You haven't

101
00:04:51.240 --> 00:04:53.560
noticed how all newsmen use the same metaphors.

102
00:04:54.199 --> 00:04:58.160
Another senseless killing early today in mid Manhattan.

103
00:04:58.360 --> 00:05:03.839
Senseless as opposed to what sensible? Killing? A man was

104
00:05:03.839 --> 00:05:05.800
beaten an oob of twelve cents on the west side?

105
00:05:05.839 --> 00:05:06.680
A senseless killing?

106
00:05:06.720 --> 00:05:08.519
Where's the east side? One thousand dollars killing?

107
00:05:08.639 --> 00:05:09.240
Very sensible?

108
00:05:12.319 --> 00:05:14.800
All came out of that friendship was something both described

109
00:05:14.800 --> 00:05:17.439
as mutually instructive. Jay Leno was a better performer than

110
00:05:17.480 --> 00:05:19.680
he was a writer. Letterman was a better wordsmith than

111
00:05:19.680 --> 00:05:22.480
he was a performer. Each one watching the other work

112
00:05:22.560 --> 00:05:25.199
understood something about the craft more clearly for having seen

113
00:05:25.240 --> 00:05:28.079
the opposite approach done well. Letterman eventually said, I was

114
00:05:28.120 --> 00:05:30.360
a broadcaster who worked as a comedian. Jay was a

115
00:05:30.399 --> 00:05:33.439
comedian who worked as a broadcaster. By the time Letterman

116
00:05:33.519 --> 00:05:36.199
launched Late Night with David Letterman on NBC in nineteen

117
00:05:36.240 --> 00:05:39.000
eighty two, the two were kind of the elder statesman

118
00:05:39.040 --> 00:05:41.920
of the comedy store generation, not old, but experience enough

119
00:05:41.920 --> 00:05:44.040
to be the ones the younger comedians were watching as

120
00:05:44.079 --> 00:05:46.399
an example of how to do it. And then Letterman

121
00:05:46.480 --> 00:05:48.720
gave Jay Leno a platform that introduced him to a

122
00:05:48.759 --> 00:05:51.120
completely different audience than one had been billion clubs.

123
00:05:51.399 --> 00:05:54.160
We have a good show. Jay Leno is a very

124
00:05:54.279 --> 00:05:55.879
very funny young man, and he will be out here

125
00:05:55.879 --> 00:05:57.560
in just a second as soon as I introduce him.

126
00:05:57.959 --> 00:06:00.160
He is my first guest. He is a good friend

127
00:06:00.759 --> 00:06:05.079
of President Reagan. Also a very talented comedian. He will

128
00:06:05.120 --> 00:06:08.319
be appearing this weekend at the Carlton Backstage in Minneapolis.

129
00:06:08.360 --> 00:06:11.160
Please welcome Jay Leno. There. We have your magazine or

130
00:06:11.160 --> 00:06:12.199
do you do You want to take a minute to

131
00:06:12.600 --> 00:06:14.720
clarify this good friend of President Reagan.

132
00:06:15.000 --> 00:06:17.199
What happened was the last time I was on the show.

133
00:06:17.759 --> 00:06:20.160
President Reagan had seen the show and one of his

134
00:06:20.240 --> 00:06:22.439
staff called me to ask me about a joke. Now,

135
00:06:23.000 --> 00:06:24.759
if I took time out every time I had a stake,

136
00:06:24.839 --> 00:06:26.040
called me, good, heavens I wouldn't.

137
00:06:26.680 --> 00:06:29.240
But you know that he really called. No, he didn't

138
00:06:29.240 --> 00:06:32.160
call me if he doesn't stay up this late, does.

139
00:06:32.040 --> 00:06:34.399
He not when you're on, But when I'm a guest,

140
00:06:34.399 --> 00:06:37.839
occasionally he does that. He says, I don't get a

141
00:06:37.920 --> 00:06:39.120
chance that often, but when you're on.

142
00:06:39.360 --> 00:06:42.000
Okay, well that's very nice. I have a copy here

143
00:06:42.040 --> 00:06:47.000
of something called Writer Writer Magazine. This is a motorcycle

144
00:06:47.199 --> 00:06:52.000
Enthusiasts publication interview. All right, let's see ye here it

145
00:06:52.079 --> 00:06:54.600
is funny David. Picture of Jay right on the inside. There,

146
00:06:54.800 --> 00:06:57.879
nice nice drawing, nice story. I guess I happened to

147
00:06:57.959 --> 00:07:00.720
see you in Playbook magazine.

148
00:07:02.720 --> 00:07:04.399
You know, it's so funny. You know, it's so funny.

149
00:07:04.399 --> 00:07:06.120
While we're talking about magazine, you know, the people from

150
00:07:06.160 --> 00:07:09.160
Playboy called me and they asked me to do an

151
00:07:09.160 --> 00:07:12.879
interview for Playboy. And rather than do my interviewing Playboy,

152
00:07:13.000 --> 00:07:16.639
I did mine in Women Are Our Equals magazine.

153
00:07:20.879 --> 00:07:22.360
Who's who's on the cover there.

154
00:07:22.360 --> 00:07:25.120
Well, let's see this Geraldine Ferrero. Then there's a story

155
00:07:25.160 --> 00:07:28.560
in here in Margaret Meade. Here's here's an interview with

156
00:07:28.680 --> 00:07:29.800
Gloria Steinhem.

157
00:07:30.480 --> 00:07:32.079
Now let's see who's in your magazine.

158
00:07:35.319 --> 00:07:41.600
Muffy, Muffy, Muffy doesn't like guys who are turn offs.

159
00:07:43.959 --> 00:07:47.000
Muffy's favorite movies are Bambi and The L Shaped Room.

160
00:07:49.519 --> 00:07:51.639
I used to love when Jay Leno would show up

161
00:07:51.680 --> 00:07:53.920
on Late Night. There was a version of Jay Leno

162
00:07:53.959 --> 00:07:55.920
in the early to mid eighties that people who saw

163
00:07:56.000 --> 00:07:59.759
him on Letterman remember very specifically. It's different than the

164
00:08:00.439 --> 00:08:03.839
who settled into the Tonight Show. The early Letterman appearances

165
00:08:04.120 --> 00:08:07.240
featured a comedian who was sharper edgier, not a word

166
00:08:07.360 --> 00:08:09.600
usually here with Jay Leno. More willing to take the

167
00:08:09.680 --> 00:08:12.240
material somewhere uncomfortable. It was closer to the voice he'd

168
00:08:12.279 --> 00:08:14.720
been developing in the clubs, where you don't smooth things

169
00:08:14.720 --> 00:08:16.439
out because the room will tell you immediately if you've

170
00:08:16.480 --> 00:08:19.279
gone too far. Dave and Jay worked off each other

171
00:08:19.319 --> 00:08:21.079
in a way that brought something out in both of them.

172
00:08:21.600 --> 00:08:23.199
Now is this possible? When is the last time you

173
00:08:23.240 --> 00:08:24.360
were on this television program?

174
00:08:24.600 --> 00:08:26.560
I was here about a month and a half ago,

175
00:08:26.639 --> 00:08:29.959
and I haven't been home since that. I haven't I've

176
00:08:29.959 --> 00:08:31.040
been on the road the whole time.

177
00:08:31.560 --> 00:08:32.279
Isn't that awful?

178
00:08:32.639 --> 00:08:35.879
It's not awful, Dave, Not for us comedy foot soldiers

179
00:08:35.919 --> 00:08:37.120
who are out there in the trenches.

180
00:08:37.519 --> 00:08:37.600
Now.

181
00:08:38.279 --> 00:08:41.600
I'm not one of your big time comedy generals with

182
00:08:41.759 --> 00:08:45.840
some cushy desk job wringing three four hundred a week,

183
00:08:45.879 --> 00:08:47.679
come out there in the trenches doing the club.

184
00:08:48.960 --> 00:08:51.480
People who watched those early Letterman appearances and then watch

185
00:08:51.600 --> 00:08:53.759
Jay on The Tonight Show in the nineties notice the difference.

186
00:08:54.320 --> 00:08:57.200
People in the comedy community said Lenno was a toned

187
00:08:57.240 --> 00:08:58.960
down version of the act he used in the clubs

188
00:08:59.480 --> 00:09:01.759
in order to reach the broader and more traditional Tonight

189
00:09:01.799 --> 00:09:05.200
Show audience. Which is a calculation completely understandable. I don't

190
00:09:05.200 --> 00:09:07.759
think that's crazy at all. The version of jay Leno

191
00:09:07.799 --> 00:09:10.200
that a certain generation I'll raise my hand discovered on

192
00:09:10.279 --> 00:09:13.039
Letterman younger, less polished, more specifically funny in the way

193
00:09:13.080 --> 00:09:15.840
the comedy nerds mean when they say specifically funny. That

194
00:09:16.120 --> 00:09:18.600
version is worth acknowledging as a real thing that existed

195
00:09:18.600 --> 00:09:22.120
before the TV institution softened some of the edges. The

196
00:09:22.200 --> 00:09:25.639
Letterman friendship eventually turned into something more complicated. We will

197
00:09:25.679 --> 00:09:28.919
get to that. If you've listened this far, you probably

198
00:09:28.960 --> 00:09:31.360
know about Dave and Jay, and then Jay and Conan.

199
00:09:31.399 --> 00:09:33.559
We're not going there today, but that early friendship at

200
00:09:33.600 --> 00:09:37.159
the comedy store, the mutual education, the Letterman years, that's

201
00:09:37.200 --> 00:09:39.279
a whole different part of the Jay Leno story that

202
00:09:39.360 --> 00:09:44.519
you don't hear these days. It's hard to talk about

203
00:09:44.559 --> 00:09:47.759
jay Leno without spending time on the cars. The Big

204
00:09:47.840 --> 00:09:50.440
Dog Garage and Burbank started as a property jay Leno

205
00:09:50.480 --> 00:09:53.919
bought in nineteen ninety one seventeen thousand square feet. It

206
00:09:54.039 --> 00:09:56.720
is now one hundred and twenty two thousand square feet,

207
00:09:56.840 --> 00:10:00.039
expanded by a factor of seven over thirty years. I

208
00:10:00.120 --> 00:10:01.919
know currently has more than two hundred cars and over

209
00:10:01.960 --> 00:10:05.039
one hundred and sixty motorcycles. He has sold exactly one

210
00:10:05.200 --> 00:10:08.559
car in thirty years, a Tesla model S he auctioned

211
00:10:08.639 --> 00:10:10.600
on bring a trailer, and he invited the new owners

212
00:10:10.639 --> 00:10:13.399
to a private garage tour after the sale. That's how

213
00:10:13.480 --> 00:10:16.320
Jay thinks about the cars. They're not investments, they're the point.

214
00:10:17.240 --> 00:10:19.840
The collection ranges from a nineteen oh oh four curve

215
00:10:19.960 --> 00:10:23.799
to dash Oldsmobile to current hypercars. He doesn't keep them

216
00:10:23.840 --> 00:10:26.399
in climate control rooms. He's a mechanic who happens to

217
00:10:26.480 --> 00:10:28.720
be famous, who bought a property in Burbank and filled

218
00:10:28.759 --> 00:10:31.600
it with cars. Jay Leno's Garage started as a web

219
00:10:31.679 --> 00:10:34.440
series for NBC before moving to CNBC as a proper

220
00:10:34.559 --> 00:10:37.440
TV show or It ran for seven years before eventually

221
00:10:37.519 --> 00:10:41.399
moving to YouTube. The format works because Jay actually knows

222
00:10:41.440 --> 00:10:43.519
what he's talking about. The knowledge is specific and real

223
00:10:43.600 --> 00:10:45.559
and comes from thirty years of working on the cars.

224
00:10:46.200 --> 00:10:48.519
One car sent him to the hospital. That's the nineteen

225
00:10:48.559 --> 00:10:51.679
o seven white steam car November twelfth, twenty twenty two.

226
00:10:51.799 --> 00:10:54.639
Inside the garage, Jay was working on the car and

227
00:10:54.759 --> 00:10:57.159
it caught fire. The fire burned Jay's face in his

228
00:10:57.279 --> 00:10:59.759
hands seriously enough that he was hospitalized and required treatment

229
00:10:59.759 --> 00:11:02.639
at a center. Then, in January of twenty twenty three,

230
00:11:02.960 --> 00:11:06.039
he fell off a motorcycle and broke several bones. People

231
00:11:06.159 --> 00:11:08.720
were wondering what is going on there, But it seems

232
00:11:08.759 --> 00:11:11.240
like it was just back to back accidents, and we

233
00:11:11.399 --> 00:11:14.399
need to talk about his wife, Mavis. Jay Leno met

234
00:11:14.440 --> 00:11:16.759
MAVs at the Comedy Store in Los Angeles in nineteen

235
00:11:16.840 --> 00:11:19.679
seventy six. He said she laughed at all his jokes

236
00:11:19.679 --> 00:11:22.240
at the right time, which for a comedian is meaningful.

237
00:11:22.320 --> 00:11:25.399
It's not just polite laughter, but genuinely timed laughter that

238
00:11:25.480 --> 00:11:27.960
tells you someone actually understands what you're doing. They got

239
00:11:28.000 --> 00:11:30.559
married in nineteen eighty. They never had any children, but

240
00:11:30.720 --> 00:11:33.279
for a Hollywood couple to be together forty five years,

241
00:11:33.399 --> 00:11:37.240
that is amazing. In January of twenty twenty four, Jay

242
00:11:37.360 --> 00:11:40.720
Leno filed for a conservatorship over Mavis's estate after she

243
00:11:40.879 --> 00:11:44.399
was diagnosed with advanced dementia. Jay has been her primary

244
00:11:44.559 --> 00:11:47.159
caregiver since he limits his travel. When he does go

245
00:11:47.279 --> 00:11:49.639
somewhere for work, he comes home the same day. He

246
00:11:49.679 --> 00:11:52.639
doesn't want to stay away overnight anymore. He makes MAVs lunch.

247
00:11:52.759 --> 00:11:55.679
She's home every evening. Jay has talked about how hard

248
00:11:55.919 --> 00:11:58.440
this would be if for roughly three years, Mavis would

249
00:11:58.440 --> 00:12:00.000
wake up and it would be the day her mother died.

250
00:12:00.279 --> 00:12:02.519
Should learn it fresh every morning, cry through it fresh

251
00:12:02.559 --> 00:12:06.000
each morning because the memory couldn't hold overnight. Jay says

252
00:12:06.080 --> 00:12:08.360
he enjoys taking care of her. It gives him purpose.

253
00:12:08.720 --> 00:12:10.240
When someone asked Jay Leno if he was going to

254
00:12:10.279 --> 00:12:12.759
get a girlfriend, he described it as the most Hollywood

255
00:12:12.759 --> 00:12:14.240
thing I'd ever been asked. He said, you take a

256
00:12:14.360 --> 00:12:16.279
vow when you get married, and people are stunned. They're

257
00:12:16.279 --> 00:12:18.080
so shocked that you would live up to it. He

258
00:12:18.120 --> 00:12:20.360
said he would rather be with her than doing something else.

259
00:12:20.440 --> 00:12:22.480
He said, I'm not just with someone because they're attractive

260
00:12:22.480 --> 00:12:24.200
and sexy. At some point in my life, I'm going

261
00:12:24.279 --> 00:12:26.600
to be called upon to defend myself. That's really what

262
00:12:26.720 --> 00:12:29.480
defines a marriage. That's what love is. That doesn't sound

263
00:12:29.519 --> 00:12:32.200
like the worst guy in the world to me. Jay Leno, Happy,

264
00:12:32.320 --> 00:12:34.639
Jay Leno Day back tomorrow with a normal episode.