Have all his Emmys helped David Letterman to forgive Jay Leno?

In his first print interview in more than a decade, David Letterman spends more time talking about late-night rival Jay Leno losing his job than himself. Asked by Rolling Stone about NBC's decision to replace Leno with Conan O'Brien next year, Letterman says, "I don’t know why, after the job Jay has done for them, why they would relinquish that."

While Leno has ruled the ratings, it is Letterman who has prevailed time and again at the Emmy Awards. Since taking over the "Tonight" franchise in 1992, Leno's version of the talk-show staple has won the Emmy for best variety comedy or music series only once — way back in 1995, just weeks after his infamous interview with Hugh Grant, who had been arrested for hiring a prostitute. The last of its nine nominations in that category came in 2003. Letterman's "Late Show" took home the Emmy for its first season in 1994 and then for five years in a row beginning in 1998. 

Jay Leno has lost the individual performance category twice — in 1998 to Billy Crystal for hosting the Academy Awards and in 2005 to Hugh Jackman for hosting the Tony Awards. Letterman was also in that 1998 race and he has lost the hosting Emmy three more times — 2001, 2006 and 2007 — but returns as a nominee this year.

Beginning in 1984, David Letterman won four consecutive Emmys as part of the writing team on his NBC show "Late Night" that followed his mentor Johnny Carson's version of "The Tonight Show." And Letterman has been a perennial writing nominee for "Late Show," including this year. Leno, who has never been nominated for writing, will have to be content with contending this year for outstanding special class — short-format nonfiction program for "Jay Leno's Garage" against  "Deadliest Catch: The Real Dutch" and "Great Moments from the Campaign Trail."

As per Brian Stelter of the New York Times, Letterman says that he would welcome Leno, a onetime staple on his old NBC show, to his CBS show once "The Tonight Show" host signs off: "I think he’d be a great guest on the show. The first night that he is out of a job, I think that would be a great situation." And don't expect Letterman to be handing over the reins any too soon if he has anything to say about it: "The way I feel now, I would like to go beyond 2010, not much beyond, but you know, enough to go beyond. You always like to be able to excuse yourself on your own terms." Perhaps after 26 years as a late-night host, Letterman would like to equal Carson's record of nearly three decades.

(NBC)