Jay Leno explains what made him realize his jokes about trans people were in poor taste
“When I got The Tonight Show, I hired the best producer I could, the best director, who I thought were the best writers… When they would tell me the show sucked, I would go, ‘Why’d it suck?’ And they’d tell me why it sucked.My theory was anybody can pull the cord and stop the train.
I remember one time we had a guy in the basement who I didn’t know. I had done at the time a transgender joke, and I heard this guy was really hurt about it.
So I go down to see him and he explained the situation.I said you’ll never hear another transgender joke from me again. He was so taken by the fact that he could bring this show to a screeching halt because of his one complaint. [He] turned out to be the greatest lighting guy or sound guy, whatever he did, that we had.”— Jay Leno during an appearance on Bill Maher’s Club Random podcast.
