Jay Leno admits why he let Jimmy Kimmel humiliate him on his own show: My mistake

Jay Leno is looking back at the infamous incident that sparked his long-running feud with Jimmy Kimmel.While appearing on “The Jay Leno Show” in 2010, Kimmel repeatedly took shots at Leno over the notorious “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 decided not to cut the comedian’s jabs at him from the final 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 somebody.

I went, ‘Ah, I made a mistake.OK, I should pay the price.’ And it’s fine, it’s fine.

I mean, we could have edited it out of the show.“Why didn’t you?” Bensinger, 38, asked.“Because it happened,” Leno explained.“It’s real — it happened.

It’s my mistake.That’s how you learn.”When Bensinger questioned if Leno’s decision was a “mistake” because the interaction made for “good TV,” the comedian said he didn’t view it in that light. “It’s not good TV for me because it started a whole thing that continues to this day, really,” he said.

“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 conflict over the succession plan for NBC’s hit late-night show “The Tonight Show.”In 2009, Leno agreed to step down as host of “The Tonight Show” so O’Brien could take over.In return, Leno was given his own primetime talk show, “The Jay Leno Show.” When both shows struggled in the ratings, NBC proposed moving Leno’s show back to late night and pushing “The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien” to a later timeslot.O’Brien refused and left the network while Leno retur...