Jay Leno gets honest about ‘challenge’ of caring for wife Mavis amid dementia battle: ‘I didn’t cut and run’

Jay Leno’s marriage may look a little different these days, but he wouldn’t have it any other way.

Last year, the former Tonight Show host’s wife’s dementia battle was revealed after he filed for a conservatorship for her, in an effort to assure Mavis, 77, has a living trust set up in the case that he passes away before her.

And though he, 74, has kept details about her health largely private since, he recently got candid about what it’s really like taking care of her.

Speaking on In Depth with Graham Bensinger, Jay said: “When you get married, you sort of take a vow: ‘Will I live up to this? Or will I be like a sleazy guy if something happens to my wife, I’m out banging the cashier at the mini mart?'” before maintaining: “No, I didn’t.”

“I enjoy the time with my wife. I go home, I cook dinner for her, watch TV and it’s okay,” he shared, adding: “It’s basically what we did before, except now I have to feed her and do all those things.”

And though he described it as the first real challenge he has faced in his life — he will be 75 on April 28 — he emphasized: “I like it. I like taking care of her. She’s a very independent woman, so I like that I’m needed.”

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Further giving insight into how their relationship has changed, and taking on the heartbreaking task of caring for someone with dementia, Jay said of course “It’s a challenge” when you “have to feed someone and change them and carry them to the bathroom and do all that kind of stuff every day.”

“It’s not that I enjoy doing it,” he continued, though then noted: “But I guess I enjoy doing it.”

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He went on: “I’m not just, ‘This person is attractive and sexy,’ and having sex with them and everything,” adding: “I think that’s really what defines a marriage.”

“I mean, that’s really what love is. That’s what you do. I mean, I’m glad I didn’t cut and run. I’m glad I didn’t run off with some woman half my age or any of that silly nonsense. I would rather be with her than doing something else,” he further reflected.

© Ron Galella

Mavis and Jay met in the 1970s at famed Los Angeles comedy club the Comedy Store, where the veteran television host was scheduled to do a stand-up show. They never had kids together, which Mavis previously said is something she decided on when she was a kid herself. In 2014, she told The Washington Post: “I remember telling my mother when I was 7 or 8 that I was never going to get married or have children.”

Citing the 1955 sitcom The Honeymooners as an influence, she further explained: “I would see a young woman who was very attractive and a thousand times smarter, and she’s living in this little tenement hovel with her husband,” adding: “These men spend all their time talking about what a drag the wives are and asking how can they get away from them. It’s perfectly obvious the women are the ones trapped.”