Jay Leno is opening up about losing The Tonight Show twice. In an interview set to air Sunday on CBS' 60 Minutes, Leno tells Steve Kroft the 2009 debacle in which NBC pushed him from his show and handed it to Conan O'Brien made him feel like he'd been dumped by a girlfriend.
"I was blindsided…[NBC executives said] ‘You’re out…’ and I went ‘okay.’” He said of the 2009 incident. He added that he didn't ask the execs why they made their decision. “You know, you have a girl [who] says, ‘I don’t want to see you anymore.’ Why? You know, she doesn’t want to see you anymore, okay?”
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He also said he was upset that the media painted him as the villain when NBC pushed O'Brien from The Tonight Show after poor ratings.
“I didn’t quite understand that, but I never chose to answer any of those things or make fun of any other people involved,” Leno told Kroft. “It’s not my way.”
Late Night host Jimmy Fallon will take over The Tonight Show on Feb. 17, and Leno's post-Tonight future is unclear. NBC entertainment chairman Bob Greenblatt has said he would like to keep Leno in the NBC family after the comedian's final episode, which is slated for Feb. 6. But sources have told THR that Leno is highly unlikely to stay at NBC.
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In his 60 Minutes interview, Leno had kind words for Fallon.
“It's not my decision and I think I probably would have stayed if we didn’t have an extremely qualified, young guy ready to jump in. [Jimmy Fallon] is probably more like a young Johnny [Carson] than almost anybody since. And he's really good," Leno said. “So you go with the new guy. Makes perfect sense to me.”
When asked if he would have liked to stay at Tonight, he said, “Well, it’s always nice to keep working. Sure it is…But am I extremely grateful. Yeah.”
The interview also features Leno's wife, Mavis, and follows the comedian to his hometown of Andover, Mass.
60 Minutes airs Sunday at 7 p.m. ET.
