Melissa Rivers: Jay Leno Ignored Me Shortly After Joan Rivers’ Death

Melissa Rivers, Leno Continuing Feud Between Host, Late Comedian?

Melissa Rivers told Howard Stern that Jay Leno “snubbed” her, continuing his grudge against her mother, Joan Rivers, even after her death.

Rivers said she made eye contact with Leno at the Hollywood Reporter Women in Entertainment breakfast in December, according to Star Pulse. And Leno didn’t approach her to offer condolences for her mother’s death in September.

“I walk in, and I’m standing, having a coffee in the reception area, and Jay looks right at me, and looks away,” Rivers said. “I sort of wrestled with this. Don’t you think you still walk over and say, ‘I’m so sorry about your loss, how are you doing?’ Or, ‘I know there was an issue, but please accept my condolences?’ It would have been closure, and it would have been the right thing to do.”

After taking over for Johnny Carson in 1992 on NBC’s “The Tonight Show,” Leno never invited Joan Rivers to be on the show. Rivers was frequently a guest host on the show until she got her own late night talk show in 1986. Carson held a grudge, and never spoke to Rivers again.

Leno has been accused of carrying on Carson’s grudge.

“If he made eye contact with her, he didn’t recognize it was Melissa,” a spokesman for Leno said, according to Us Weekly. “Had he done so, he would’ve come over to extend his condolences. He apologizes if she was offended, but he did not realize it was Melissa.”

Of course he didn’t.

Agencies/Canadajournal