The late night drama might be over for Conan O’Brien, but Jimmy Kimmel’s not done joking about Jay Leno just yet.
“He went on ‘Oprah’ and rats me out,” Jimmy said during Thursday night’s episode of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” referring to his colleague’s appearance on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” earlier in the day. “That’s a sucker-punch right there. You don’t go to Oprah and say that. He’s a tattle-tale.”
During his “Oprah” appearance, Jay told her that he’d felt “sucker-punched” by Jimmy’s barb-filled appearance on “The Jay Leno Show’s” “10@10” segment on January 14. That appearance followed an episode of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” where Jimmy did his whole show in character as Jay, complete with a wig and prosthetic chin.
“Oprah and I had a wonderful relationship, and now it’s ruined because of Jay,” Jimmy continued to joke during his Thursday night monologue, before explaining why he’d launched so many attacks on his fellow host.
“I figured I’d start in, he’d get into it and we’d mix it up,” he said. “You know, at one time [Leno] was a comedian. But he didn’t do that. He stood there and he just kind of read through the questions like a robot.”
Still, Jay did choose to leave the “10@10” segment unedited in his show.
“I said, ‘No. Put it out there. I walked into it,’” Jay told Oprah.
They weren’t the only heated remarks to fly across the late night landscape earlier this month over Conan’s controversial exit from “The Tonight Show,” but Jay also told Oprah he understood the outbursts.
“They were jokes and that’s OK,” Jay said at the time. “It’s what we do. It’s like being a fighter … when you get punched in the head and someone asks, ‘Did it hurt?’ Well, yeah, but you’re a fighter, that’s what you do.”
Jay returns to “The Tonight Show” on March 1. His last episode of “The Jay Leno Show” airs on February 9.
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