Jimmy Kimmel responded to Jay Leno's claims that he felt "sucker-punched" when Kimmel came on his show and joked about the late-night scandal, calling Leno a "tattle-tale" and saying that it was Leno that sucker-punched him.
"Excuse me if I look like I've been crying, it's been an Oprah-whelming day for me," Kimmel said of Leno's Oprah appearance, which he described as "titan to to titan."
"It's kind-of funny, you know, celebrities usually go on Oprah with these intense, serious interviews to get support from the public after they had sex with their father or married Bobby Brown or something, Jay Leno went on because they gave him the Tonight Show back. So please, keep him in your prayers," he said.
After playing video of Leno's comments about him, Kimmel told his audience "the real story" of his Leno appearance:
After Kimmel performed an entire show impersonating Leno, Leno called up and said he found the show funny. His team then invited Kimmel to appear on Leno's "10 @ 10" segment, but Kimmel said the producers didn't want to talk about the late-night drama.
"So I get on the phone and the producer goes through about 30 questions and none of them are about what's going on in late night," Kimmel said. "The questions were like, 'What's your junk food weakness?'
"So I say to the guy, 'You know a little of this is fine, but I really think we have to talk about what's going on with Jay and Conan because that's what people want to hear about - not about my junk food weakness. I weigh more than 200 hundred pounds, all junk foods are my weakness.'"
Kimmel says Leno's producer was wary of overdoing the topic, "but what he did not understand was I did want to beat it to death. I like beating things to death. And so I did. Because, if I go on that show and answer ten questions about junk food, I'm the one that looks like a jerk. 'Hi Jay, oh I love Raisinettes!'
"If I made any mistake," Kimmel said, "the mistake I made was thinking Jay would have anything other to say than what was written on the cue cards. I figured he'd get into it and mix it up. You know, at one time he was a comedian. But he just stood there, kind-of reading through the questions like a robot and then goes off and rats me out to Oprah. That's a sucker punch right there, he's a tattle tale. Oprah and I had a wonderful relationship and now it's ruined because of Jay.
"And by the way, watch out Oprah, don't think he won't take your show next," he said.