One of Jay Leno’s gut-busting knee-slappers has landed him and “The Tonight Show” in some legal trouble, TheWrap reports.
During a July 2013 episode, Leno made a joke about a flight attendant smuggling her beloved pet rat onto the plane via her undergarments. Leno insinuated that the flight attendant may have liked her rat a little too much — as in sexually — just in case you couldn’t follow Leno’s highbrow level of hilarity.
American Airlines flight attendant Louann Giambattista filed a lawsuit against Leno, “The Tonight Show” and NBC Universal Media Group because “Leno and his guests falsely accused Ms. Giambattista of engaging in sexual relations with a rat,” according to the lawsuit picked up by Couthouse News Service.
Giambattista says that the joke has made her and her husband “pariahs in their own community, among their long-standing group of friends, among their co-workers and even among family.”
In an even more dire portion of the complaint, Louann claims that Leno’s joke has negatively impacted her sex life because, “Every time [her husband] looks at her he thinks of Defendant Leno and the heinous segment depicting her as a sexual deviant.”
Woah. That really is worthy of a lawsuit if you picture Jay Leno’s chin every time you try to have sex.
Giambattista is also suing American Airlines in a separate complaint and is seeking unspecified damages in both cases.