Five years ago, Jay Leno promised Conan O'Brien he'd step aside in 2009, vowing to hand over The Tonight Show without repeating the bitter fallout of the first late night war. This past week he broke that promise.

"When I took this show over there was a lot of animosity between me and Dave and who's going to get it, and quite frankly a lot of good friendships were permanently damaged and I don't want to see anybody have to go through that again. You know, this show is like a dynasty-you hold it and then you hand it off to the next person and I don't want to see all the fighting and all the who's better and nasty things back and forth in the press so right now, here it is, Conan it's yours. See you in five years, buddy."

Related: Seth Meyers' anti-NBC Saturday Night Live rant that NBC doesn't want you to watch.