Instead of relaxing by the pool and enjoying a huge fortune, millionaire Jay Leno still works hard and earns money.
From his first job as an employee at McDonald’s, Jay Leno has now become a famous comedian and MC, with a fortune of about $400 million. Notably, since the first appearance on “The Tonight Show” in 1977, 45 years have passed, but this millionaire is still the MC of countless TV shows as well as many scheduled monologues.
This 71-year-old millionaire once explained why he used to work so hard until now. At that time, he had just moved out of his parents’ house to work in Hollywood. “I was trying to impress my mother and I said, ‘You know, Sylvester Stallone just got $10 million for two weeks’ work,’” Leno says. “And she said, ‘Yeah, but what’s he going to do the other 50 weeks? What happens when that job’s out?’”
That logic made sense to Leno. “Later on, I was literally in that position where I was making a ton of dough doing ‘The Tonight Show,’ but I had it in my head that if I didn’t go out and tell jokes and earn money, it wasn’t real. It was all in the bank somewhere.” Looking back, Leno admits that this thought process seems “ridiculous,” but it accomplished something important to him.
Even now, despite being in his 70s, this millionaire has never thought about retirement. In fact, he shared that he hasn’t relaxed by the pool in his Beverly Hills home in 30 years. The reason was because he couldn’t shake the feeling that he could be doing something more productive.
Jay Leno said: “Every time I get near it, I’ll get that Boston voice in my head going, ‘Really? Is that what you are now? A rich guy that sits in a pool?’” says Leno, who grew up in Andover, Mass. “There must be something I could be doing besides this. I want to make sure I’m always motivated to make money, so I never look at the money from The Tonight Show. It goes straight to the bank.”
Not only that, this millionaire is also known as an extremely frugal person. He never took out a loan, because he always kept in mind that he would never buy something that he could not fully pay for. He also never bought installments, because he thought, “When you own something and you don’t have to write checks every month, you’re just better off.”
