Jay Leno Says Ticket Sales for His Standup Shows Went Up Almost 30% When He Made This 1 Change

Jay Leno is keeping his comedy firmly out of the political arena.

The 75-year-old former Tonight Show host, who continues to tour with his standup act, says he’s made a deliberate choice to avoid political jokes altogether — no matter which side they target.

“I took politics out of it,” Leno told Hoda Kotb during a special Today segment on Thursday, Nov. 20. He added that the decision has paid off: “I noticed ticket sales are up 20–30% just because nobody wants to be lectured.”

Leno, who spent more than a decade behind a late-night desk, suggested that the dynamic of TV comedy can be very different from what works in an arena or theater.

“When you’re on TV and you can play directly to your audience and there’s a laugh track,” he explained, “when you go to Indiana or Kentucky or any other place in the country, you’re always going to have a third of the people who don’t agree with you politically, so why even go there?”

Kotb noted that today’s political climate can make comedy feel harder to navigate, but Leno didn’t agree. “I don’t think it’s any trickier,” he said. “We’ve always had tough times.”

Calling himself “very hopeful” and “optimistic,” he pointed to social progress as a reason for that outlook. “Stuff that used to be the law is now against the law, and that’s great,” he said, before adding his own blunt metaphor for how change happens: “Ultimately, it’s a bit like a donkey, sometimes you’ve gotta hit in the head with a 2 x 4 to get its attention, but eventually it’ll listen.”

This isn’t the first time Leno has made the case for steering clear of political material. In a July interview with Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute President & CEO David Trulio, he said focusing on politics shrinks the crowd you’re trying to entertain.

“Why shoot for just half an audience all the time?” Leno asked. “I like to bring people into the big picture… I don’t understand why you would alienate one particular group.”

Meanwhile, political tension around late-night TV has been growing in recent months. Several hosts have faced public criticism from President Donald Trump’s administration. CBS’s The Late Show with Stephen Colbert is set to end in May 2026, a decision the network attributed to financial reasons. The announcement arrived after Paramount — CBS’s parent company — settled with President Trump for $16 million following his claim that 60 Minutes deceptively edited an interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris. Paramount was also pursuing a merger with Skydance at the time, a deal requiring federal approval.

In September, Jimmy Kimmel Live! was temporarily pulled from the air after backlash over Kimmel’s remarks about conservative pundit Charlie Kirk’s death. Trump has since repeatedly called for Kimmel to be fired and for the show to be canceled.

Trump’s administration has also taken aim at NBC’s late-night lineup, including The Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon and Late Night host Seth Meyers, whom Trump recently suggested the network should “fire immediately.”