But at the end of the day, those were stories about two men in similar positions within the very small circle of late night TV, and even if they were butting heads every night after primetime TV was over, each was in a place to understand the other person in a way that no one else necessarily could.
Such is the case with all comedians, really, since they look at life in different ways than most people.
Not that Jay Leno is necessarily playing down the fact that the rivalry existed, or that it wasn’t as big of a deal as people made it out to be.
He knows what happened and he knows how people reacted to all the stories, as well as the ones about his fallout with Conan O’Brien.