In a candid interview, Jay Leno opens up about being blindsided by Jimmy Kimmel during a 2010 Tonight Show appearance and how the two comedians eventually reconciled.
Los Angeles, May 8:
Jay Leno is setting the record straight about his long-standing feud with Jimmy Kimmel — and how time, and compassion, ultimately healed the wounds.
During a recent appearance on In Depth With Graham Bensinger, the former Tonight Show host spoke openly about the infamous 2010 incident when Kimmel, a guest on The Tonight Show, mocked Leno live on-air during a tense period in the show’s history. Leno, who had returned as host following Conan O’Brien’s controversial exit, said he allowed the jabs to air unedited.
“When Kimmel came on my show and humiliated me on my own show, I let it happen. I didn’t edit it,” Leno admitted. “It was my mistake. I trusted somebody. I went, ‘Ah, I made a mistake. Ok, I should pay the price.’ And it’s fine, it’s fine.”
At the time, Leno had recently stepped down from The Tonight Show after 17 years, only to return after his short-lived primetime show flopped and NBC decided to reshuffle its late-night lineup. The reshuffle led to Conan O’Brien’s departure — a move that sparked industry backlash and criticism, especially from Kimmel.
During his 2010 Tonight Show guest appearance, Kimmel mercilessly joked, including one infamous line:
“I told a guy that five years from now I’m going to give you my show, and then when the five years came, I gave it to him — and then I took it back almost instantly.”
Now, more than a decade later, Leno reflects on why he didn’t cut the moment from the episode.
“It’s real — it happened. It’s my mistake. That’s how you learn,” he said. “It’s not good TV for me because it started a whole thing that continues to this day, really. But it’s okay. He’s a comic — you do what you gotta do. I mean, I wouldn’t have done it, but that’s alright.”
Despite the public fallout, the two comedians eventually made peace. Leno reached out to Kimmel in 2017 after Kimmel’s son underwent heart surgery — a gesture Kimmel has publicly acknowledged as the turning point in their reconciliation.
“We made peace,” Kimmel previously said, crediting Leno’s thoughtful call as a genuine act of kindness.