Jay Leno says his wife, Mavis, experiences a heartbreaking moment every day due to her dementia diagnosis.
“I mean, probably the toughest part was, every day she’d wake up and realize someone had called today to tell her her mother had passed away,” Leno told Hoda Kotb in a Today interview on Thursday.
“And her mother died every day for, like, three years. And it was, not just crying, I mean, you’re learning for the first time. Each time was — and that was really tricky,” the former late-night host said.
The couple met in the ’70s and married in 1980. In April 2024, Leno was granted conservatorship over his wife’s estate following her diagnosis. They have no children together.
Leno says his wife will sometimes “point to something and say something that doesn’t quite make sense.”
“And I’ll go, ‘No, it’s good, honey. It’s all right.’ I sense she wants to be reassured that everything’s OK,” Leno said.
He added that not much else has changed, and he still enjoys her company.
“Before she had this, I would always go home after ‘The Tonight Show,’ cook dinner for her, and we’d watch TV. The only difference is now you just can’t really talk about a lot of things,” Leno said.
He acknowledged that she may one day forget about him, but that “hasn’t happened yet.” Despite the challenges, he continues to find joy in spending time with her each day.
“You know, when I’m carrying her — carry, like, to the bathroom — we do this and I call it Jay and Mavis at the prom, you know, in high school,” he said. “So, we’re just, like, back and forth, and she thinks that’s funny.”
Leno said his wife still expresses her love for him.
“And when she looks at me and smiles, and says she loves me, I mean, I melt,” he said.
During an April appearance on the “In Depth with Graham Bensinger” podcast, Leno talked about the challenges of caregiving.
“When you have to feed someone and change them and carry them to the bathroom and do all that kind of stuff every day,” Leno said. “It’s a challenge. And it’s not that I enjoy doing it, but I guess I enjoy doing it.”
In early November, Leno told People that he’s “lucky” to be able to care for his wife.
“It’s not work, because people come up, and say they feel so sorry. I understand the sympathy, because I know a lot of people are going through it, but it’s OK,” Leno said.
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