Jay Leno is wanting again on the notorious incident that sparked his long-running feud with Jimmy Kimmel.
Whereas showing on “The Jay Leno Show” in 2010, Kimmel repeatedly took pictures at Leno over the infamous “Tonight Show” debacle involving Conan O’Brien.
On Wednesday’s episode of “In Depth With Graham Bensinger,” Leno, 64, shared his regrets over the on-camera encounter with Kimmel, 57, and revealed why he determined to not lower the comic’s jabs at him from the ultimate broadcast.
“When Kimmel came on my show and humiliated me on my own show, I let it happen. I didn’t edit it,” Leno recalled.
He continued, “It was my mistake, I trusted someone. I went, ‘Ah, I made a mistake. OK, I should pay the price.’ And it’s high quality, it’s high quality. I imply, we may have edited it out of the present.
“Why didn’t you?” Bensinger, 38, requested.
“Because it happened,” Leno defined. “It’s real — it happened. It’s my mistake. That’s how you learn.”
When Bensinger questioned if Leno’s resolution was a “mistake” as a result of the interplay made for “good TV,” the comic mentioned he didn’t view it in that mild.
“It’s not good TV for me because it started a whole thing that continues to this day, really,” he mentioned. “But it’s okay, it’s alright. He’s a comic — you do what you gotta do. I mean, I wouldn’t have done it, but that’s okay. That’s alright. It is what it is.”
The 2010 incident with Leno and Kimmel stemmed from a widely-publicized battle over the succession plan for NBC’s hit late-night present “The Tonight Show.”
In 2009, Leno agreed to step down as host of “The Tonight Show” so O’Brien may take over.
In return, Leno was given his personal primetime discuss present, “The Jay Leno Show.”
When each reveals struggled within the scores, NBC proposed shifting Leno’s present again to late night time and pushing “The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien” to a later timeslot. O’Brien refused and left the community whereas Leno returned to internet hosting “The Tonight Show.”
The fiasco resulted in a serious backlash towards Leno and NBC. Kimmel, who was a supporter of O’Brien, made headlines for his look on Leno’s discuss present a 12 months later throughout which he known as out the host for his function within the controversy.
When Leno requested Kimmel about the perfect prank he had ever pulled, Kimmel joked, “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.”
Earlier this week, Kimmel additionally addressed his feud with Leno throughout an episode of “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”
On Wednesday, the comic teased visitor Ben Affleck because the actor walked on stage, saying, “You may have that look in your face that you just generally have once I see you, the place you’re like, ‘What is he gonna do? Is he gonna do something?’
“I’m not going to do anything,” he assured Affleck earlier than including, “It’s not going to be like when I came to your house for Christmas, and I walk in the door and then Jay Leno walks right in after me and then we’re both uncomfortably making small talk with you and you go, ‘Oh yeah, you both have something with each other?’ and then I had to stay in there.”
“Believe it or not, I didn’t follow the nuance of your gossip history,” Affleck instructed him.
“No, you just dropped a grenade right on us,” Kimmel quipped.
Affleck recalled witnessing the pair’s uncomfortable change, remembering, “It was like, ‘This is painful enough. What’s weird? Is something weird? Have you guys been insulting each other publicly for decades?”
Whereas the 2 comedians have publicly traded barbs through the years for the reason that 2010 incident, Kimmel revealed in 2017 that that they had mended their rift.
The late-night host instructed The Hollywood Reporter that it was the delivery of his toddler son that broke the silence between the 2 males.
“Jay and I have made peace. After my son had his operation, he called me and he was very nice.”
Kimmel’s son, William John, now 8, was born with a coronary heart defect that required emergency surgical procedure.
Trying again, Kimmel mentioned the rivalry was rooted in his love for David Letterman. Letterman had hoped to take over internet hosting “The Tonight Show” following Johnny Carson’s departure in 1993, however he left NBC for CBS when Leno was tapped for the function as an alternative.
“You have to remember how much I love David Letterman. When all that stuff happened, I was just a fan, reading Bill Carter’s book [1994’s The Late Shift: Letterman, Leno, and the Network Battle for the Night.] and there was a villain and a hero, and Dave was the hero and Jay was the villain. I started off with a negative feeling about it. I sometimes insert myself into situations I have no business inserting myself into.”
Nonetheless, Kimmel mentioned he had softened his stance on Leno following the kind-hearted telephone name.
“You can’t argue with [Leno’s] success and his longevity. I will say, when I was in high school and college, he was one of my all-time favorite comics.”
