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Jay Leno has been asked if he’ll get a girlfriend in the wake of his wife Mavis’ dementia diagnosis.
“You take a vow when you get married, and people are stunned, they’re shocked when you live up to it,” Leno told Maria Shriver on the latest episode of her “Life Above the Noise” podcast.
The former late-night talk show host, 75, has been married to his wife, Mavis, since 1980. The couple have no kids. In 2024, he revealed her dementia diagnosis.
On the podcast, Leno told Shriver, “My favorite thing — this is the most Hollywood thing — a guy said to me, ‘So are you going to get a girlfriend now?'” Leno recalled, adding that he replied, “‘Well, no. I have a girlfriend. I’m married.’ We’ve been married 45 years, you know what I mean? [We’re] kind of in this together. You can’t go, ‘Honey, I’ll be with my girlfriend, I’ll be back later.'”
The comedian added that he is “just doing the right thing because you’re supposed to.”
“That kind of used to be the norm, and then when you strayed, that was the out-of-whack part,” he explained. “Now the out-of-whack part is fairly common, and staying and doing what you’re supposed to do is stunning to people. ‘Why do you do that?’ ‘Well, we kind of made a deal.'”
Shriver, 70, who is the niece of President John F. Kennedy, the ex-wife of Arnold Schwarzenegger, and the mother of “The White Lotus” star Patrick Schwarzenegger, is a longtime advocate for people with Alzheimer’s disease. Her father, Sargent Shriver, who died in 2011, was diagnosed in 2003.
She noted that “millions” of people “doing caregiving” are “unseen, invisible.”
Leno dismissed the idea that it takes a “toll.”
“I haven’t really been tested in my life. I wasn’t in the army. I didn’t have to shoot anybody. So this is that thing,” Leno said. “I’m glad I’m passing the test, because you never quite know what you’re going to do in that situation, or any situation. “
He noted, “I like to think I made the right decision.”
Earlier in September, Leno said at a press conference for Harley-Davidson’s charity motorcycle ride, “My wife’s got some problems, so it’s just her and I. But it’s always been her and I for the last 45 years anyway, so it’s fine. I enjoy taking care of her. It’s fun.”
English (US)