Jay Leno has revealed a heartbreaking struggle his wife endured due to her dementia, saying the disease caused her to start every morning for roughly three years thinking she’d just learned that her mother died.
“I mean, probably the toughest part was every day she’d wake up and realise someone had called today to tell her her mother had passed away,” Leno said in a recent interview with NBC’s Today.
The former Tonight Show host has been married to Mavis Leno for 45 years. He filed for conservatorship over the 79-year-old’s estate in January 2024, citing her dementia diagnosis as the reason for his filing.
Leno told Today that one of the biggest challenges he and his wife have faced was her experiencing daily grief over losing her mum.
“Her mother died every day for, like, three years,” he said. “And it was not just crying. I mean, you’re learning for the first time. Each time was… really tricky.”
Mavis’s mental decline has made it difficult for the Lenos to do a lot of things, like travelling and eating in restaurants, but the 75-year-old classic car collector said they enjoy going for drives.
“She seems happy and she seems contented. It’s actually OK,” he said. “You know, I enjoy taking care of her.”
Leno said much of the care he gives his wife involves comforting his wife amid her confusion.
“She wants to be reassured that everything’s OK,” he said. “Now she really needs me and I like that. And I can tell she appreciates it. The idea that you get married, you take these vows, nobody ever thinks they’ll be called upon to act on them. You know that part — for better or worse. But even the ‘worse’ isn’t that bad.”
Leno hosted The Tonight Show from 1992 until 2014. He succeeded Johnny Carson, who spent 30 years on the late-night programme now helmed by Jimmy Fallon. Leno is a member of the Television Academy Hall of Fame and the Automotive Hall of Fame.
Mavis is an activist and philanthropist, who spent decades on the board the Feminist Majority Foundation. Her work on the Campaign to Stop Gender Apartheid in Afghanistan garnered Nobel Peace Prize consideration in 2002. – New York Daily News/Tribune News Service
