Jay Leno Shares Emotional Update on Wife Mavis’ Dementia Battle

Jay Leno may be known as a comedian, but life today for the 75-year-old isn’t always a laughing matter.

In late 2024, the former Tonight Show host shared that his wife, Mavis, has been diagnosed with advanced dementia. As a result, Leno has rearranged his life to make sure he can properly be there for his wife and serve as her primary caregiver—a role that surprises some people, and one Maria Shriver was curious to speak with him about when Leno sat down for an interview on her Life Above the Noise online interview series.

While Leno remains very active on the stand-up scene, he has been very open about only taking jobs that will allow him to return home the same day or spend no more than a night away from his wife. 

“There’s been a lot of attention on that role that you have taken on or found yourself in,” Shriver noted. “Are you surprised at how many people want to talk to you about being a caregiver?”

“I’ve been very fortunate. I’ve been very lucky,” Leno said. “The people I feel sorry for are the nurse, policeman, or teacher. You’ve got a job and you have to take care of elderly parents or a spouse or something like that. I mean, I can afford to have somebody with Mavis when I’m not there. I can come home at 6 o’clock and make dinner and it’s good.” 

“I never want to be one of these woe-is-me people, because it’s not that,” he continued. “I’m very fortunate.” The most surprising part of the attention Leno receives for looking after his wife is that people think he would opt for another route.

“I’ve said this a bunch of times: you take a vow when you get married, and people are stunned—they’re so shocked that you live up to it. Why?,” he asked. 

As Leno sees it, abiding by his “in sickness and in health” vow is “the right thing to do,” and what he promised his wife nearly half-a-century ago. 

“We just make a big deal out of it,” Leno continued. “You’re just doing the right thing because you’re supposed to… That used to be the norm, and then when you strayed, that was the out-of-whack part. Now the out-of-whack part is fairly common and staying and doing what you’re supposed to do is stunning to people.”

Leno repeated that he’s been very lucky in life, and admitted that Mavis’ illness is the first time he’s been truly tested in his life. “And I’m glad I’m passing the test,” he said.

Really, Leno seems to hope the attention being paid to his situation can help 50 to 60 millions of other people who serve as caregivers to loved ones get the recognition they deserve for this truly difficult task. 

“Most people who do this kind of job, nobody knows they’re doing the job,” Leno said. “If you know somebody in this situation, go up and tell them how much you admire them… It’s like greeting a soldier and telling them how much their service meant to you.”

But Leno admitted that finding the comedy in a situation, or the chance to be funny, is never too far from his mind. “Making my wife laugh is still one of my primary things,” he said. “And you figure out how to do it.”

When Shriver shared that a friend was in a similar situation as Leno with his own wife, and wanted the comedian’s advice on how he gets through the day, he seemed stumped to come up with an answer. Perhaps because every person’s situation is different. 

“My wife still recognizes me,” Leno noted, which is not always the case with advanced dementia patients. Ultimately, he said, “You try to look back at the parts of your life together that you enjoyed. Like, to me, my wife was an ardent feminist. She worked for women’s rights. So I like to go, ‘Ohhh—you need that husband now, don’t you?’ And she gets the joke. She knows that I’m teasing her.”

“Try to get your laughs while you can,” was Leno’s main piece of advice. “Try and watch funny movies… My thing is to just to keep her mood constantly up and lively. And it seems to be working pretty well.”