Melissa Rivers: Leno ‘Snubbed’ Her After Joan Rivers’ Death, Still Holding A Grudge?

Melissa Rivers says that Jay Leno “snubbed” her after her mother’s death. According to Star Pulse, Melissa opened up to Howard Stern about an incident that happened while she was at the Hollywood Reporter Women in Entertainment breakfast back in December. She says that she saw Leno, made eye contact with him, but he never approached her to offer his condolences (Joan Rivers died on September 4, 2014).

“I walk in, and I’m standing, having a coffee in the reception area, and Jay… looks right at me, and looks away. I sort of wrestled with this. Don’t you think you still walk over and say, ‘I’m so sorry about your loss, how are you doing?’ Or, ‘I know there was an issue, but please accept my condolences?’… It would have been closure, and it would have been the right thing to do,” Melissa told Stern.

Melissa Rivers seems to believe that Jay Leno is still holding a grudge of sorts. It was widely known that Joan Rivers was never invited to do The Tonight Show while Leno was host. You see, Johnny Carson banned Rivers from his show back in the 80s when Joan decided to have her own show on a rival network (Fox). Leno has said that he kept the ban going when he took over the show “out of respect” for Carson. Many people thought this was absolutely absurd, but Leno stuck to his guns. Since Joan’s passing, it seems as though he hasn’t really changed his attitude much.

Even still, Leno’s rep responded to Melissa’s claims.

“If he made eye contact with her, he didn’t recognize it was Melissa. Had he done so, he would’ve come over to extend his condolences. He apologizes if she was offended, but he did not realize it was Melissa.”

According to NewsOXY, there doesn’t seem to be anything that would suggest a truce will occur. While it would be nice for Jay to issue some kind of apology, it seems clear that there is still a lot of bitterness there for whatever reason. Do you think Leno should reach out to Melissa?

As previously reported by the Inquisitr, Melissa is still healing after her mother’s untimely passing. She recently listed Joan’s Upper East Side penthouse apartment for sale for a cool $28 million. No word yet if the home has sold or if Melissa has received any offers.

[Photo by Michael Buckner/Getty Images]