PEOPLE

Jay Leno has revealed a heartbreaking struggle his wife endured due to her dementia, saying the disease caused her to start every morning for roughly three years thinking she’d just learned that her mother died.

“I mean, probably the toughest part was every day she’d wake up and realize someone had called today to tell her her mother had passed away ,” Leno said in a Thursday interview with NBC’s “Today.”

The former “Tonight Show” host has been married to Mavis Leno for 45 years. He filed for conservatorship over the 79-year-old’s estate in January 2024, citing her dementia diagnosis as the reason for his filing .

Leno told “Today” that one of the biggest challenges he and his wife have faced was her experiencing daily grief over losing her mom.

“Her mother died every d

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