Leno fired his entire staff today. I suppose the unfunny douche needs all of his money for his unfunny douche motorcycle collection.
"We haven't heard from him since the second or third day of the strike," the former staffer said.
"He called on speakerphone while we were in our daily meeting and said, 'Don't look for other jobs , no one's going to lose their house, we'll get though this.' Two weeks ago, we got the heads up that we had two more weeks (of pay) and that's it. Everyone wondered, 'Is Jay going to come through?' And nothing happened. Conan makes less and he said, 'I'm going to pay for my people.' "
Damn fucking straight. Conan and Letterman are both paying their people. Leno makes $27 million a year. In other words, he could pay his staff $5 million, and he'd still make $21 million this year.
CORRECTION: $27 million minus $5 million is $22 million. I'm a dingus. Also, for the sake of clarification, Leno's non-writing staff was laid off. The writers are still employed as far as I know.
CORRECTION 2: It turns out that NBC laid off the staff -- not Leno himself. I made a mistake and thought that Leno owned the Tonight Show in the same way Letterman owns the Late Show and therefore jumped to the conclusion that Jay Leno gave the final word on the lay-offs. I'm terribly sorry for the confusion.
UPDATE: Leno has decided to pay his staff after all.