Jay Leno says dementia-stricken wife still passionate about hot-button issue she championed before health woes

Jay Leno Share that his wife Mavis, who is fighting advanced dementia, has “burned” and defined her long before the diagnosis.

The 75-year-old former late-night host has married the 79-year-old female rights activist and philanthropist since 1980, and the couple has never had children. In a new interview People Magazine, Leno openly accepts his role as the sole caregiver.

“My wife had some problems, so it was just her and me. But the last 45 years have been me and me, so it’s good. I love taking care of her. It’s fun.”

“I mean, I really like it,” Leno continued. “People think, ‘Oh, it must be terrible.’ No, because she has no pain.”

Jay Leno grants wife Mavis protection due to diagnosis of dementia

“It’s not like a tumor or cancer,” he added. “It’s just the confusion that Alzheimer’s and dementia brings. It’s OK.”

In January 2024, Leno applied for protection for Mavis’ estate. At the time, Leno said that, according to Fox News Digital documents, Mavis “lacks her “main neurocognitive impairment (including dementia)” and therefore “lacks the necessary ability to execute legacy plans.”

He described his “love marriage of over 43 years” with his wife, but noted that he “always dealt with the couple’s financial situation,” and he wanted to make sure that “Mavis has managed enough to provide assets for her care if Jay Predecease Mavis provides care for her.”

Los Angeles judge awards Leno’s petition in April 2024 Commitment to wife’s happiness.

“I think she is in the most restrictive environment. I think she takes great care of Mr. Leno,” the judge said at the hearing. People Magazine.

“Everything you did was right,” the judge told Leno. “I totally understand that it was a tough time.”

Leno said in a recent interview with the people that he found it meaningful to take care of Mavis.

“I like being her rock,” he said. “It makes you feel wanting. You have a purpose now. So it’s great.”

Leno “Hawaii V-O” Since the 1960s.

“We watched the plot of Stanley Holloway playing a genetic scientist,” Leno recalled. “So McGarett went to meet his daughter, who was about 40. He said, ‘What kind of genetic engineering does your husband do?!” She said, “Okay, I’m just a woman.”

“My wife was really involved in women’s problems,” he said, recalling that Mavis began to growl when he heard the line.

“She was just yelling on TV. She was still firing,” Leno said. “It just made me laugh.”

He added: “Just screaming at McGarett…but it just made me laugh.”

Although Leno continues to tour Stand up comedian After Mavis’s dementia diagnosis, he told people that it would be a priority for him to go home every night.

“I go home every day. I go to Puerto Rico one day, [the] The plane is waiting, and I’m back soon,” he said. “That’s what I’m going to do. I have to go home every night. This is my job. ”

Leno reflected on his knowledge of himself after taking on the role of Mavis caretaker when he appeared in April on “Deep with Graham Bensinger.”

Emmy winners shared that he was “never particularly challenged.”

Jay Leno tries to find humor in his wife’s dementia battle

“I’m not here army. Leno said, “I don’t have to shoot anyone. You kind of swear…and, ‘Will I live up to this? Or if something happened to my wife, I’d be like a dirty guy, I bumped into the cashier in the minimatrip. No, I didn’t.”

He added: “I love being with my wife. I go home and I cook for her, watch TV, it’s OK. It’s basically what we did before, except now I have to feed her and do all of these things. But, I love it.”

“I love taking care of her. I think somewhere in my life I’m a very independent woman, so I love it. I need, you know, I need to be there.”

Asked what he found out was the most challenging part of care, Leno said: “That was a challenge, wasn’t it?

He continued: “It’s a challenge. It’s not that I like to do it, it’s that I…I think I like to do it. It’s OK.”

“I’m not just, ‘This guy is attractive and sexy’ and having sex with them and everything,” he added. “At some point in my life, I’ll be asked to defend myself…I think that really is what defines marriage. I mean, this is love. This is your job.”

“I mean, I’m glad I didn’t have the cut.

Leno and Mavis first met in the 1970s at a comedy store in Los Angeles. During an interview Los Angeles Times In 2014, Mavis shared how she immediately attracted her future spouse.

“It was in January – I don’t remember the day. But then I thought, ‘Sacred S —! That comedian is beautiful!'” She remembers meeting Leno. “I went to the comedy shop with my girlfriend because I wrote comedy with some of my partners. Friends kept saying, ‘You have to hang out in comedy shops and improvisation shops. You’ll meet people who can give you work.’ When I first went there, they sat in the center of our front row – which means you’re far from the comics.

In an interview in 1987 With people Mavis explained that she never thought she would marry before meeting Leno.

“It’s a big deal for me and part of my strong feminism,” she said. “But with Jay, I began to realize that this was the first time I had a perfect, calm arrival to my destination.”

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Leno recalled in an interview with Ben Singer in April that he was attracted by Mavis’s spirit and independence and admired her for the traits he hoped to be able to emulate.

He said: “I always tell people, ‘Marry someone you want you to be.’

“That’s why, if I marry another self-centered person, one of us would die.” “My wife did a lot of charity and things like that, and it worked very well. I married someone who I hoped to have the ideal.”

“She is a greedy reader and feminist, and all of this stuff – fighting for women’s rights, I’ve always loved it.” “I’m attracted to women who are willing to do good things. When I was single, it was a teacher, a nurse and a person [who] It is not necessarily self-gain. ”

Leno also reflects why he and Mavis have never had a child.

“If she wants children, we will [them],” he told Ben Singh. “It’s no big deal for me. If she doesn’t want kids, that’s great, you know. I mean, the good thing is that we can travel like couples. ”

“Because as a comedian, if we had a kid she would come home, I would be on the way,” Leno added. “I mean that’s it.”

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May 2024 Leno and Mavis participated The Feminist Majority Foundation’s 16th Annual Global Women’s Rights Awards Gala presented the Mavis Leno Award for Global Women’s Rights Award. Mavis has worked with the FMF for decades and has chaired a campaign to stop gender segregation in Afghanistan from 1997 to 2019.

Leno said in an interview with Fox News Digital that their lives are better than ever.

“All of that,” Leno said when asked whether his faith and family helped the couple get together recently. “It’s. It’s the whole thing. We’ve been married for 44 years. It’s made it easy. It’s not difficult.”

While presenting the award, Leno shared his emotional tribute to Mavis after taking the stage together. The host of the “Jay Leno’s Garage” recalls the first time he saw his wife, choking Mavis and marrying “the smartest thing I’ve ever done.”

“When I saw that young college girl come out, I had to smile, and it reminded me of a young girl,” Leno said.

“She encountered the same fire,” he recalled. “A few weeks later, I told a story about the front page of picking up paper with her photos. [Mavis]. [I thought] It would be a fascinating relationship, and it has been. ”

“We’re so happy,” Leno added as he hugged and kissed Mavis on the head. “People say Marriage is difficult. I do not understand. I like her company. I like taking care of her. We are very happy. She is the most independent woman I know. Again, I can’t be proud of her. ”

Leno continued: “I am part of her legacy and that’s what I am most proud of.”

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