Leno Tells His Side of the Story

The aftermath of any conflict is hard and the late-night war on NBC is no exception.

On The Oprah Winfrey Show, Jay Leno told his side of the story. Throughout the whole fiasco, Leno was demonized for being seemingly unfeeling and manipulative. According to Leno, when he was asked in 2004 by the NBC executives to step down in five years, he said “It broke my heart. It really did, I was devastated.”

The talk show host also said that he’s “not a person who carries my emotions on my sleeve,” and that he was “happy with what I had.”

To him, being the host of The Tonight Show was the only job that mattered to him.

When Oprah asked what he had planned to do in five years, Leno admitted to telling a “white lie” about retiring. In reality he was hoping to work on another station, but that was “a lot of work.”

According to Leno, the reason the show failed in the first place was simply because it was “a late-night talk show at 10 o’clock”. He also explained to Oprah that the jokes the two fired at each were just that, jokes.

Leno also said that he hadn’t talked to Conan O’Brien since this whole mess was supposedly finished. The reason for this is to allow everything to calm down before speaking again.

Though many harped on Leno during the fiasco, the reality is what could he have done? All the major decisions were out of his hands. In any case, we will just have to see how long this fallout will last.