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Jay Leno recalls turning a road rage encounter into a wake-up call.
The 74-year-old TV personality discussed the incident while appearing on TMZ's Merry Elfin' Christmas holiday special. "I'll tell you a road rage story involving Taylor Swift," he told the publication's bullpen, about a time he was out driving one of his many classic cars.
"I'm in traffic, a guy behind me, beep beep beep. I'm driving one of my old cars so I [gesture to] go around me," he said, explaining that the driver then flipped him off. When they both pulled up the light, Leno couldn't help but ask the guy, "What was that all about?"
That's when Leno, who hosted The Tonight Show from 1992 until 2014, said the man just went off, cursing at him. The comedian was over being nice at that point, and admitted, "That's when I laid into him." He unleashed quite the heckling on the man, sharing, "I said, 'Let me guess: What are you, 52, divorced, your kids hate you, you're bald? What was your greatest day - in high school?'"
Rather than leading to a fist fight, Leno recalled "the guy starts crying," noting that the man even admitted that the former Jay Leno's Garage star had been accurate in his assessment of his life. Once the tone changed, Leno said he hopped into the man's car to try to comfort him.
"I said, 'Look, I got Taylor Swift on the show next Wednesday — do your daughters like Taylor Swift?'" he recalled. When the man said that his daughters loved Swift, Leno invited him to bring his daughters to his show, and even arranged for the "Fortnight" singer to meet with them.
Leno called Swift "the nicest person" and said that after explaining the situation to her, she agreed to meet with the girls, who were just "ecstatic." The Eras Tour superstar talked with the girls after the show, and even gave them swag, which landed their father back in their good graces.
Leno's storytime came a few weeks after the star revealed he was wearing an eye patch due to falling down a hill, and hitting his eye on a rock. It's the latest of many injuries in recent years, including a big garage fire incident in 2022 that left him with second- and third-degree burns to his face, chest, and hands.
About a month after the fire, he told the story to Hoda Kotb on Today, explaining, "The fuel line was clogged, so I was underneath it. It sounded clogged, and I said, 'Blow some air through the line,' and so he [Dave Killackey, his friend who was working on the car with him] did. And suddenly, boom, I got a face full of gas. And then the pilot light jumped, and my face caught on fire."
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