Last November, Jay Leno turned up on a red carpet with a completely mangled face. His face was swollen and heavily bruised, and he claimed to have fallen down a hill/ravine or something while looking for a restaurant outside of Pittsburgh. Obviously, people wondered if Leno’s explanation was a cover story for something much more nefarious. We still don’t know, but as I said at the time, it’s not like Leno is broke by any means. If he, perhaps, had gambling debts, he has the money to pay it off, you know? He’s made a fortune over the course of his career, and he was once one of the highest-paid men on television. He’s also never stopped working – after he was done with the Tonight Show, Leno continued to do what he’s always done: stand-up tours, shows all around the country. People Mag recently asked Leno why he still goes on stand-up tours when he could just do a Netflix special like every other comedian. Leno’s answer was surprising, I guess.

More than four decades into his career in comedy, Jay Leno still loves small comedy clubs more than any other venue.

Leno, 74, recently told PEOPLE that he performed “about 150” tour dates in 2024 while discussing his role as Ed Sullivan in the new film Midas Man. When asked if he intends to continue performing such a high volume of shows, Leno says, “You know, I like it. I like to tell jokes. People [say,] you should do like a Netflix special. I don’t wanna do it once and get a big check. I’d rather do it a hundred times and get a bunch of smaller checks, you know what I mean? It’s more fun for me. That’s what I like.”

“You can try things out and see how they work,” Leno adds, noting that he recently told an anecdote about a person who asked him “Why didn’t your house burn down?” during January’s wildfire outbreak across Los Angeles.

“People just thought that was a funny thing,” the former Tonight Show host says. He and his wife, Mavis Leno, were not affected by the fires, and Leno joked that he recently told someone who asked about their safety that he may have been affected if the fires happened 15 years prior.

“I said, ‘Well, you know, I’m not as famous as I was 15 years ago when I was doing the Tonight Show,'” he jokes. ” I was the biggest celebrity then. So I think if it happened, then I would’ve lost my house, but not now.’ And he says, ‘That makes sense.’ I go, ‘No, it doesn’t make sense, it doesn’t make any sense at all,'” Leno adds, with a laugh. “It’s the stupidest question.”

Leno also shares his plans to continue performing a high volume of shows through 2025 as he reflects on his tendency to sleep about four hours each night. He tells PEOPLE that when he once tried to adjust his sleep schedule, he found himself waking up around 3:00 a.m. — and he generally goes to bed around 2 or 2:30 a.m. and wakes up “at 7:30 or 8:00.”

“I’m just not a big sleeper,” he adds. “I suppose if I had a real job where I had to work hard, I’d be more exhausted. So that’s probably what it is.”

[From People]

He barely sleeps and he’s on the road for a big chunk of the year, and he doesn’t want “big paychecks”? Eh. It’s weird that he doesn’t realize that he could do both, a comedy tour AND a Netflix special. Lots of stand-ups do just that, they go on tour, work out their material, then schedule a Netflix filming for one of the later dates of their tour. Jay has also opened up about his wife’s dementia. Dealing with that at home must be pretty tough.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Cover Images.