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The Media Proved How Truly Awful They Are by Posing This Question to Jay Leno

Amy Curtis
Amy Curtis  |  January 19, 2026 12:30 PM

Caring for someone with Alzheimer's or other forms of dementia is challenging, on a good day. This writer's uncle spent a decade caring for her aunt with Alzheimer's. She didn't recognize him, or their adult children, nor did she remember that one of their daughters died of cancer in 2013. It was a long road, but one handled with grace and tremendous love.

Comedian, car enthusiast, and former Tonight Show host Jay Leno is facing a similar road. His wife, Mavis, also has advanced dementia, and Leno is her caregiver. The couple has been married for 45 years, having met at the Comedy Store in L.A. in 1976. They married in 1980.

So Leno said he was stunned when a member of the media asked him if he planned on getting a girlfriend while caring for his wife.

Here's more:

As the Tonight Show alum has acted as a caregiver to wife Mavis Leno during her battle with advanced dementia, he’s faced some shocking questions about his personal life.

“My favorite thing was—this is the most Hollywood thing,” Jay recently recalled on Life Above the Noise With Maria Shriver. “A guy said to me, ‘So, are you gonna get a girlfriend now?’”

The question surprised Jay, who responded, “‘Well no, I have a girlfriend. I’m married. Married 45 years.’” 

To which he recalled the other guy saying, “‘Yeah, but you know what I mean.’”

But the comedian emphasized he is not interested in seeing other people. “No, we’re kinda in this together here,” Jay explained about taking care of Mavis through sickness and health, joking, “‘Honey, I’ll be with my girlfriend. I'll be back later.’”

“You take a vow when you get married and people are stunned,” Leno, “they’re so shocked that you live up to it. Why?”

Why? Well, the reporter who asked this question has neither loved nor been loved. If he had, he would know that marriage vows mean "in sickness and health," not "until you have dementia, then I'll find a side piece." Leno is fulfilling the vows he made 

Yes, he is.

It's incredibly refreshing.

This is all true.

It's a stupid and revealing question.

They absolutely stink.

Leno is a class act, through and through.

Our media, on the other hand, are absolutely garbage. We need more men like Leno and fewer like whatever reporter asked that question.