BEHIND THE CURTAIN BEHIND THE CURTAIN BEHIND THE CURTAIN (22 page)

Tiger was a loyal guest, never appearing on Letterman. During his appearances he always got in a jab at his good friend and wannabe golfer Charles Barkley, calling the former NBA star the “worst golfer of all time” while showing video of his imperfect golf swing. When Charles came on the show, he got back at Tiger by calling him a cheapskate. It became a running gag.

In November 2002, Tiger brought his Swedish girlfriend—Elin Nordegren, a model—to the show with him. He was proud of her and wanted to introduce her to Jay. Tiger married Elin in 2004, and in 2006 he made a very touching appearance, telling Jay he wanted to have kids and that family would always come first. Then he paid tribute to his dad and “best friend,” Earl, who had died earlier that year. Earl was Tiger’s rock in life. I believe that loss led to some very unfortunate consequences.

On November 25, 2009, the
National Enquirer
ran a story that Tiger was having an extramarital affair. Two days later, another story surfaced: Tiger had left his home in Windermere, Florida, in his Cadillac Escalade SUV and collided with a fire hydrant, a tree, and several hedges on his street. He was treated for minor cuts to his face and received a ticket for careless driving. There were reports Elin had smashed the vehicle’s back window with a golf club while attempting to get at her husband. The story ballooned into a major sex scandal, as more than a dozen women came forward claiming to have had affairs with Tiger.

Tiger’s sordid affairs were perfect fodder for late-night humor. Jay cut loose with numerous jokes:

It’s not looking good for Tiger Woods. According to a poll today, 88 percent of women have an unfavorable opinion of Tiger Woods. The other 12 percent are cocktail waitresses.

President Barack Obama accepted the Nobel Peace Prize from the Norwegians. This comes almost two weeks after Tiger Woods was crowned by a Swede.

Gatorade has officially ended their relationship with Tiger Woods. He was seeing at least five other sports drinks.

The jokes were funny, but I knew Tiger wouldn’t like them. So I reached out to his long-time agent, Mark Steinberg, who
was always gracious and polite. This time, though, he never called me back. Later, Tiger
hired Ari Fleischer
, President Bush
’s former press secretary and a friend, to handle the press.

Ari told me he missed the old days when life was easier. Back then he only had to represent a beleaguered president to the Washington press corps. Ari said he would get back to me if Tiger ever wanted to do the show. Of course, he never did. Tiger returned to the PGA Tour in April 2010 and divorced Elin shortly thereafter.

Kobe Bryant was only seventeen when he made his first appearance with Jay in July 1996. He had just been signed by the Los Angeles Lakers after deciding to go directly into the NBA from his high school in Philadelphia. Even then he had all the confidence of a superstar, predicting the Lakers would win ten NBA titles while he was on the team.

Kobe was close with his family, who often accompanied him to the show. In 1998, during his second guest spot, he talked about his dad, Joe “Jellybean” Bryant, who played with the Philadelphia 76ers for eight years. Joe taught his son how to play basketball, and by the time Kobe was fourteen,

he could beat his dad in one-on-one play. At age nineteen, he was already being compared to the great Michael Jordan. Life was good, but it was all happening so fast.

At age twenty-one, Kobe met seventeen-year-old Vanessa Laine, and the two got engaged six months later. There were reports that his family did not approve of Vanessa. Then, in April 2001, he married her at St. Edward Roman Catholic Church in Dana Point, California. Neither his parents nor his teammates attended. Press reports later said that Joe was estranged from his son for about two years after that.

Two months after Kobe’s marriage, the Lakers won their second NBA title under coach Phil Jackson. Kobe came on
Leno
to celebrate the victory and to talk about his new wife. He said it was love at first sight and that being married to her made him a better player. Then he showed off his wedding ring, which Vanessa helped design. Kobe’s family members did not show up for the taping that day. I had heard there was a falling out, and I wondered how it would affect Kobe’s life, as his family had served as an important buffer to his crazy, topsy-turvy world.

In July 2003, Kobe
, then twenty-four, was charged with sexual assault of a nineteen-year-old woman who worked in a Colorado hotel where he was staying. With Vanessa at his side,
Kobe
said at a Los Angeles press conference that he was guilty of
adultery but not rape. In September 2004, the case was dropped after the woman refused to testify in court. She later filed a civil lawsuit against him, which was settled out of court.

Jay’s monologue had some jokes about the incident:

Kobe Bryant and the Lakers are playing the Nuggets in Denver tonight. Kobe’s wife is excited because any time Kobe goes to Colorado she gets jewelry.

Kobe Bryant got a technical foul last night. But he says he didn’t foul the guy. He says it was consensual.

My contacts with the Lakers told me Kobe was not happy with the jokes, which I understood. Even so, I extended him a standing invitation through his agent, but he never came back.

Some sports heroes achieved victories and record-setting feats that were so extraordinary, they bordered on the unbelievable. That’s because they were. I wonder if we need to put an asterisk next to their appearances with Jay.

Of all the sports titans, cyclist Lance Armstrong appeared to be the greatest. It seemed that no other athlete—including Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, and Wayne Gretzky—had prevailed so triumphantly over such impossible odds. On the set, the cyclist told his amazing story of being diagnosed with an advanced stage of testicular cancer from which he was not expected to survive, but did. And after enduring three operations and aggressive chemotherapy treatments, he was declared cancer free in 1997. By January 1998, he returned to serious training. And between 1999 and 2005, he won the Tour de France, the world’s most grueling sporting event, seven consecutive times.

He would always share little tidbits about the three-week Tour, which spanned 2,300 miles. He said he rode five to eight hours a day, going 70-80 mph downhill and 30 mph on the flats. He never stopped to take bathroom breaks, instead relieving himself while riding. He also told heart-warming stories about his single mom, Linda, who struggled just to make ends meet, even as she encouraged him to accomplish great things.

Lance went so far as to say his cancer was a blessing in disguise because it humbled him. After he was stricken with the disease, he became a better person, surrounding himself with the right team and setting goals that changed the world of cycling.

Still, there were persistent doping allegations in the news, which actually made Lance look like the persecuted hero. In his last interview with Jay, he staunchly defended himself, citing the countless drug tests he had passed. Then he said such allegations would never go away because “anyone who runs fast or jumps far will be suspect.”

But in 2012, Lance publicly admitted that he was doping. He was stripped of his titles and banned from cycling for life. I look back and wonder how we all got taken in by him. He did show signs that something was amiss. Backstage, he always seemed distracted, though never rude. He once brought along Sheryl Crow, then his girlfriend, but didn’t introduce her to anyone, including Jay. It was an awkward moment because Jay didn’t recognize her at first.

When San Francisco Giant Barry Bonds sat down next to Jay in 2002 to talk about his record seventy-three homeruns the previous season, he was considered the best player in baseball. He expressed his disappointment with former baseball players who claimed that steroid usage in the sport was widespread, because it put false notions in the minds of kids. He said he didn’t take steroids and supported drug testing in Major League Baseball. Although I invited him back many times after that interview, Barry never returned.

The following year, MLB would begin drug testing. And in 2011, Barry was convicted of obstruction of justice for lying to a grand jury about using steroids and human growth hormones. In 2013, he was denied entry into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility.

Barry’s baseball career was controversial long before the steroid era. He was known in the press as an arrogant, volatile
guy who wouldn’t even autograph baseballs for children. An off-camera incident backstage at
The Tonight Show
seemed to support that theory. In 1996, we invited him to do a comedy sketch poking fun at his “reputation” for being mean to kids. He agreed to do it.

In the pre-taped bit, Barry was in the dressing room autographing a baseball for three young, admiring kids (who included my children, Melissa and David, along with a friend). They were all excited to be there to do a sketch with a famous baseball player. The plan was to have Jay introduce Barry during the monologue by saying he thought Barry was getting a bum rap and was actually a nice guy. In the next shot, the audience would see a smiling Barry Bonds interacting with the kids.

The bit went very smoothly during the show, but while we were rehearsing, the director called for a re-take right after Barry had autographed the ball and handed it to one of the
kids. As soon as the cameras stopped rolling, he grabbed it back from her. “Gimme that ball. That’s worth fifty bucks,” he said. The kids were taken aback, but Barry
was dead serious.

In 2007, baseball great Pete Rose told ESPN radio that he bet on the Cincinnati Reds “every night” while he was the manager of the team. His statement caused quite a brouhaha in the press. Following a permanent ban from baseball in 1989 for wagering on games, he insisted for years that the ban was unfounded. Then in 2004 he admitted to Jay and others that he had been gambling. I booked Pete on Leno to find out what this new development was about.

During his appearance, Pete dismissed the ESPN story as old news, but then he tried to justify his betting. He said he always bet for the Reds, which he believed showed he had faith in his players: “It was like my sons playing for me . . . I bet on them every night. . . . It was wrong, but it’s kind of human when you think about it.” Pete denied he was addicted to gambling, but he would not reveal the size of his wagers.

A
fter the show, an incredulous Jay Leno told me he didn’t think Pete
showed the slightest hint of contrition throughout
the interview. Noted clinical psychologist Stanley
Teitelbaum, who watched the interview, had the same impression and wrote about it in his book
Athletes Who Indulge Their Dark Side
: “[Pete Rose] conveyed an attitude that suggested he did not feel like he did anything wrong, with the rationalization that his betting did not hurt his team.”

Jay had a joke in 2002 that I think best sums up Pete’s moral confusion:

Baseball commissioner Bud Selig was with Pete Rose this week to discuss reinstating him to baseball. I guess the talks were going pretty good until Rose said to Selig, “So, what are the odds?”

The biggest names in racing also stopped by to chat with Jay, including NASCAR legends Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, the late Dale Earnhardt, and Dale Earnhardt Jr. But the most memorable appearance by a professional driver was that of the late Paul Newman, who in 1995 accepted Jay’s challenge to race in Go-Karts through the corridors of NBC.

Just before the competition, Jay joked that he would
kick the eighty-year-old Oscar winner’s “ass”—and then proceeded to get his own backside handed to him. Jay absolutely loved the experience. When he complimented Paul
on how smoothly he took the curves, he replied, “I wish I was seventy-nine again.”

Paul, known later in life as much for his racing as his acting, told Jay that he didn’t get into the motorsport until age forty-seven. He had tried skiing, tennis, and other sports but was never able to “find grace” until he got behind the wheel. Jay invited the veteran actor back for a rematch a year later and lost again. However, that wasn’t Jay’s last race.

In 1995, Jay competed against the elder Earnhardt in a tractor race that began in Studio 3, snaked around some hay bales on the tarmac in the “Midway” driveway outside, and ended up back in the studio. The legendary NASCAR driver, known to this day as the greatest ever, quickly pulled ahead of Jay, who then gunned it and was tire-to-tire with the “great intimidator” at the halfway mark. The race came right down to the finish line, when Jay managed to pull ahead of “number 3” by a nose.

Tonight Show
prop man and NASCAR enthusiast Greg Elliott said only a professional driver of Dale’s ability could have pulled off such a “close loss” in the dramatic fashion that he did. In his interview with Jay, Dale said he didn’t consider racing dangerous unless there was a crash. He even considered freeways so risky that he refused to drive on them. NASCAR’s “bad boy” died on the track on February 18, 2001, after crashing his car into the wall on the last turn of the last lap of the Daytona 500.

Many people assume Jay, who boasts a huge collection of cars, is a racing enthusiast. He actually isn’t, although he has driven the pace car at major racing events. However, one sport he did take an interest in was boxing.

Jay’s father, Angelo, was an amateur boxer, and Jay was fascinated by the brutality of the sport and by the fact that there can only be one winner. He talked knowledgably about “the gentleman’s sport” with boxing greats such as Lennox Lewis, Evander Holyfield, Bernard Hopkins, Sugar Shane Mosley, and Wladimir Klitschko. Of all the boxers, it was lightweight Oscar De La Hoya who made the most stops at the show.

We first booked Oscar at age nineteen after his dramatic victory at the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games. He captured America’s heart with a story about his late mother, Cecilia, who raised him in the barrio. Just before she died of breast cancer in 1990, he promised her he would win a gold medal for her. Then he told Jay about his recent visit to the White House, where he and other Olympic champions were invited for a special ceremony. At one point during this auspicious occasion, he had to go to the bathroom. He said of being in a presidential restroom, “I thought, wow, to sit here where George Bush sits is a real honor.”