The former late night host told ET why he stuck his head out of a plane's hatch mid-air.
Jay Leno is opening up about his epic plane stunt. In an exclusive interview with ET's Lauren Zima, the 71-year-old former late night host revealed what possessed him to stick his head out of the nose hatch of a Grumman Albatross during a recent flight with friends.
"My friend said, 'The front of the plane opens,' so I opened the front and then came out and crawled out on the front of the plane," Leno told ET. "Then, of course, they have to try to buzz the mountain. It's just men behaving stupidly is basically what it is."
"It doesn't make any sense. It's so stupid," he added. "I was just trying to have some fun with my friends, and of course they had to video it with an iPhone."
Leno was inspired to do the stunt when he realized his friend was sleeping.
"I wanted to get out on the front of the plane, so when he looked through the windshield he'd see me outside and not realize what was going on," he said. "That's what happened and it worked pretty good."
Podcast host and TV writer Spike Feresten shared a video of the moment on his Instagram account, calling Leno a "wing walker." Later, when Leno appeared on Feresten's Spike's Car Radio podcast, the former TV personality said that he wasn't tethered in during the unplanned stunt, a fact he confirmed to ET.
"The force of the plane going forward was keeping me there," he said. "You don't plan something like that. You can't plan it, or else someone will stop you if you planned it."
Despite the death-defying nature of the stunt, Leno said he "didn't have any fear," largely because of the plane's location, as well as its relatively low height and speed.
"We're over water, so I would've just fallen in the water," he said, adding that the plane was 200 or 300 feet up, and going 147 miles per hour.
"The plane was 71 years old, so you had an old guy and an old plane. Well, what could go wrong there?" he questioned with a laugh. "I'm not some bright person, believe me. It just seemed like a fun thing to do and it got a laugh. It's not like a jet where you're going 500 miles per hour."
On the podcast, Leno also revealed that the stunt, which happened when the plane was going nearly 150 mph, wasn't for a project, rather it was just for fun.
"It's stupid, I know. I'm glad my mom is not here. Oh God," he joked to ET. "It was fun. It was silly. I was stunned at the amount of publicity it got. It seems to be everywhere."
Now that he's survived the scary stunt, Leno is back to work as host on Fox's You Bet Your Life game show, which is set to premiere this fall and is still looking for contestants.
"It's kind of fun. It's no politics. It's a comedy show, but with no politics, so that makes it kind of interesting. You can appeal to everybody and don't have to take sides or throw rocks at each other, just have a good time," Leno said. "People come out, we ask them questions, and they win, not a great deal of money, just a fun amount of money, a few thousand dollars. We have fun laughing with them and [watching] people laugh at themselves."
"It's going very well. All the contestants have been very pleased," he continued. "It's a lot of fun. I'm really excited about it... It's a warm show and I think people will feel good about watching it."
RELATED CONTENT:
