Jay Leno Claims That the Mafia Put a Hit Out on Johnny Carson

Jay Leno continues to make guest appearances on YouTube shows, not to promote anything specifically, but to clear up some of the more conspiratorial theories about his recent so-called “accident.” This week, Leno stopped by Bill Maher’s Club Random, and naturally, the subject of Leno’s recent rash of injuries immediately came up. Maher even brought out props to tease his friend, offering Leno six “get well” cards for future incidents, possibly involving knitting needles and/or elevator shafts. 

Maher then raised the prevalent theory that Leno’s recent story about falling down a hill next to a Pennsylvanian Hampton Inn was really just an attempt to cover up the fact that he owes millions in gambling debts, and was really beaten up by mafia goons. While Leno denied ever having any connection to organized crime, he did claim that another Tonight Show host once ran afoul of the mob. 

No, not Conan.

According to Leno, Johnny Carson got into some hot water after going out for drinks to Jilly’s Saloon, a New York bar that was popular amongst mobsters, along with his lawyer Henry Bushkin. “They’re having drinks, and they start hitting on these two girls, kinda rudely. Turns out they’re mob girlfriends,” Leno told Maher. 

“They put a hit out on Carson. So Carson stops The Tonight Show for the week. He just goes, he leaves, because this is real,” Leno continued. He went on to recount how the hit was only called off because NBC agreed to cover an Italian “parade” run by the Five Families, which no other network would ever touch. 

Bushkin actually wrote about this incident in his book Johnny Carson, and his account differs slightly from Leno’s telling. According to Bushkin, he wasn’t actually there, he heard the story third-hand (supposedly Jilly’s owner Jilly Rizzo told his girlfriend at the time, Three’s Company star Joyce DeWitt). And after Carson tried to convince the unnamed mobster’s girlfriend to come home with him, “several large associates lifted Johnny off his bar stool and threw him down a flight of stairs.”

Which explains why a frightened Carson refused to leave his penthouse, and missed three Tonight Show broadcasts. A deal was eventually reached thanks to NBC’s David Tebet and the William Morris Agency’s George Wood: The network would cover the “Italian-American unity rally on Columbus Day in 1970” and the Carson murder contract would be scrapped, thus allowing him to leave his home and do the show. 

The broad strokes of the story were also backed up by private investigator Joseph Mullen, who said that he’d been contacted about providing security to Carson the night of the Jilly’s incident. But according to Mullen, it was Bushkin who made the call. Mullen ended up contacting an ex-cop congressman who “was able to influence the local precinct to dispatch a few uniformed cops to the bar, and they escorted Carson home.”

In his interview with Leno, Maher said that he’d never actually heard about any of this. “You gotta get out more. You’re smoking too much dope. You gotta get out and see what real people are doing,” Leno joked.

Either Leno was just sharing an interesting anecdote, or he expertly distracted Maher from asking any more questions about his mysterious bruises.