Leno scolded on Oprah show

Jay Leno jumped on Oprah Winfrey's couch --figuratively, at least -- while trying to reclaim his tiara Thursday as America's late-night talk sweetheart.

But the Big O didn't lend blind support to Team Leno, even though the late-night host was her star guest for the day.

In fact, she took the first jab: "America has taken sides. And a lot of people are not on your side. And they're not on your side because they think that you have been selfish in this. Do you see in any way how you've been selfish? They think that you took the job away from Conan (O'Brien)."

Leno dodged, ducked and defended: "It all comes down to numbers in show business. This is almost the perfect storm of bad things happening. You have two hit shows -- 'Tonight' show, No. 1, and Conan, No. 1.

"You move them both to another situation. And what are the odds that both would do extremely poorly? If Conan's numbers had been a little bit higher, it wouldn't even be an issue. But in business, there's always somebody waiting in the wings. Being me."

And what does Conan think about all this?

"I haven't talked to him through all this," said Leno, who still gets lots of love here in metro Detroit for those free shows he did last year for laid-off workers. "No. I haven't. ... It didn't seem appropriate."

Leno is scheduled to return to "Tonight" on March 1, and it sounds as if he's really thrilled about it.

"This whole thing was a huge mess," he told Winfrey.