Jay Leno says people are “so shocked” he’s stayed by his wife’s side after her dementia diagnosis.<\/p>\n
The 75-year-old former late night talk show host has stood by his wife Mavis – who was diagnosed with advanced dementia in early 2024 – but admitted some people seem surprised he’s stuck to his marital vows.<\/p>\n
He told the Life Above The Noise With Maria Shriver podcast: “I\u2019ve said this a bunch of times, you take a vow when you get married and people are stunned\u2026<\/p>\n
They\u2019re so shocked that you would live up to it.”<\/p>\n
Jay married Mavis, now 79, in 1980 after meeting at the Comedy Store in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n
In April 2024, he was granted conservatorship of her, following her diagnosis with the illness – which causes a decline in thinking, memory, and reasoning skills – but it appears some people expected him to move on.<\/p>\n
He added: “My favourite thing was \u2014 this is the most Hollywood thing. A guy said to me, \u2018So, are you gonna get a girlfriend now?\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2018Well no, I have a girlfriend. I\u2019m married. Married 45 years.\u2019 \u2018Yeah, but you know what I mean.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n
The TV veteran pointed out he and his wife are “kinda in this together”, even if society seems surprised when you’re “just doing the right thing because you’re supposed to”.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cThat used to be the norm, and then when you strayed that was the out of whack part.<\/p>\n
“Now the out of whack part is fairly common, and staying and doing what you\u2019re supposed to do is stunning to people.”<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Jay previously admitted he’s thankful his wife hasn’t forgotten him because of her condition.<\/p>\n
Back in November, he told Today: “I understand what it is, so you can’t blame someone…<\/p>\n
“She’s not forgetting me. That hasn’t happened yet. She seems extremely comfortable now. And she seems happy, and she seems contented. It’s actually okay. It’s good. I enjoy taking care of her…<\/p>\n
“I enjoy her company, like if I’m working on a car, she’d sit over there with a book and read.<\/p>\n
“It was just very \u2014 well, it still is, very comfortable. 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…<\/p>\n
“You know, I can see the smile. I can tell when she’s happy. And when she looks at me and smiles and says she loves me, I mean, I melt.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jay Leno says people are “so shocked” he’s stayed by his wife’s side after her dementia diagnosis. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":245690,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[93,61,60,44893,39452,7175,282],"class_list":{"0":"post-245689","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-jay-leno","12":"tag-late-night-talk-show-host","13":"tag-maria-shriver","14":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245689\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}