Back in the 90s, when late-night TV was a battleground of titans, Jay Leno and Arsenio Hall were the undisputed heavyweights. They duked it out for ratings, sure, but off-screen? Turns out they were more like brothers. And, as Arsenio Hall’s new memoir, Arsenio: A Memoir, reveals, sometimes brothers kick down doors together.
Picture it: Hall is visiting Leno's place. Presumably, they're discussing car collections or monologue jokes. Then, a flicker. A glow. A neighbor's house, engulfed in flames. Most people might call 911 and wait. These two? They sprinted.
“Jay and I run out the front door and sprint to the burning house,” Hall recounts in his book. “He presses the doorbell, and I pound on the door. No one answers. In tandem, we kick the door and break it down.” Because apparently, that's where we are now. Comedic rivals, crime-fighting duo.
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Start Your News DetoxThey rallied other neighbors to get 911 on the horn, then prepared to enter the inferno. Hall, ever the comedian, paused for a beat. “‘You wake them up,’ I say to Jay. ‘They need to see you first, not a random Black guy standing over them.’” Dry wit, even when the stakes are literally burning.
They found the elderly couple inside, roused them, and ushered them to safety just as sirens began wailing in the distance. Firefighters arrived to take over, leaving the two late-night legends with a new kind of high. Hall, reflecting on the heroics, admitted to a touch of shyness, but couldn't deny the triumphant thought: “Tonight Jay Leno and I saved two lives.”
Which, if you think about it, is a pretty good punchline to a long-standing rivalry.
