Jay Leno is walking back his comments about politics in late-night after he was ripped to shreds by John Oliver.
In a new interview with Deadline, the former Tonight Show host was asked for his thoughts on Oliver’s harsh response to his declaration that late-night hosts were “cozying too much to one side or the other” in their political comedy. Oliver told The Hollywood Reporter in response to Leno’s take last August, “I’m going to take a hard pass on taking comedic advice from Jay Leno.”
“This was all while Colbert still had a job at CBS,” Leno told the site about his comments, which he made during an appearance at the Reagan Library before Stephen Colbert was fired by CBS following a heated feud with Donald Trump
He stands by his answer, somewhat, he said. “One of the questions the interviewer, David Trulio, asked me was something like, ‘How do you think you and Johnny handled politics?’ Well, we tried to make fun of both sides equally…I mentioned the pressures of life and people cozying up to one side more than the other,” Leno explained.
“I said, ‘I don’t think anyone wants to hear a lecture. Why go for just half an audience?’” Leno recalled, adding that he felt his interviewer “wanted me to say that Republicans laugh at each other more than Democrats. I’m not sure I agreed.”
Still, the answer did not land well with either Oliver or The Daily Show host Jon Stewart, who also skewered him with a mocking rebuke of his comments, calling them “f---ing ridiculous.”
“Two weeks later, Colbert gets fired. Interview comes out. Soon after, I picked up the paper, and they have a picture of me making an angry face and saying late-night hosts are doing it wrong. I didn’t say that,” Leno said Thursday. “I didn’t. But John Oliver goes, ‘Hey, Jay Leno, f--- you. F--- you for saying that about Colbert.’ But I never said that, I never said it.”
Leno added, “That’s why I tend not to take any of it too seriously. I never mentioned another guy being better or worse or anything.”
It wasn’t the first time Leno’s comments on the subject rubbed Oliver the wrong way. In 2019, after Leno declared he’d like to see “civility” return to late-night, Oliver let loose on the host from behind the desk on Last Week Tonight.
As Leno was the “most relentless” host to target then 24-year-old White House intern Monica Lewinsky with his jokes about the Bill Clinton scandal in 1993, Oliver said that Leno’s hands “are not clean here either.” The HBO host slammed him at the time, pointing out that while other comedians “publicly expressed regret about things they said,” Leno, “was among the most relentless,” hasn’t.
“If that’s what he means by ‘civility,’ may I offer my new book, Oh, the Places You Can Go F--- Yourself, Jay Leno!” he also said.
Leno has still not formally apologized to Monica Lewinsky, but he is now rethinking his stance about whether there’s too much “cozying up” to political sides in late-night.
“We used to brag about the fact that Johnny and I would try to make fun of both sides equally,” he said. “Looks like that doesn’t work anymore. The audience is all over the place.”
In fact, Leno said the majority of audiences aren’t watching late-night anymore, before making another declaration likely to bring him more sharp rebukes: “I mean, podcasts really are the new talk show. Joe Rogan is the new Johnny Carson.”
