Jay Leno weighs in on Conan O’Brien hosting the Oscars — and reveals why he turned down the gig twice

nypost.com:

“Emilia Pérez,” “The Brutalist” and “Wicked,” which lead the nominees for the 97th Academy Awards, announced early Thursday.And as the countdown begins to Oscar night on March 2, Jay Leno is rooting for first-time host Conan O’Brien.“I think he’ll be great,” Leno, 74, exclusively told The Post. “He’s a very funny guy.

He’s very creative. I’ll watch, sure. He’ll do good.”Clearly, there is no bad blood following all the drama that went down between the two comedians after O’Brien replaced Leno as host of “The Tonight Show” in 2009 and NBC set up the latter with “The Jay Leno Show.” Seven months later, “Leno” was given the “Tonight” time slot and O’Brien left the show.

And after serving as the “Tonight” host from 1992 to 2009, Leno returned to the late-night talk show in 2010 for four more years.“You know something, that whole thing was really NBC trying to have their cake and eat it too, trying to please everybody at the same time,” said Leno, who plays Ed Sullivan in the new movie “Midas Man,” a biopic of Beatles manager Brian Epstein.Although Leno has never hosted the Oscars himself, he has been offered the coveted gig.“I did get asked twice,” he said. “And I sat down with my staff and said, ‘What do we do?

We have to do a show the day before the Oscars. We have to do a show the day after the Oscars. Do we save our best jokes for our show?