Less than a week after Conan O'Brien's "Tonight Show" farewell, and with less than a dozen episodes of his own failed prime-time show still to come, Jay Leno appeared on Thursday's (January 28) episode of "The Oprah Winfrey Show" to air his thoughts on the late-night debacle.

"It's hugely embarrassing," the 59-year-old comedian said of the situation, in which he fizzled at the 10 p.m. hour and then took back the "Tonight Show" mantle just seven months after O'Brien assumed it.

"Anything they did would have been better than this," Leno said during the hour-long interview, which took place on the set of his current show. "Anything. Anything they did. If they'd come in and shot everybody, I mean, it would have been people murdered, but at least it would have been a two-day story. Yes, NBC could not have handled it worse, from 2004 onward. This whole thing was a huge, huge mess."

Suggesting that a preferable alternative would involve a workplace massacre might be a tad extreme, but that statement just speaks to how heated this latest late-night shift has become. Pilloried nightly by his fellow hosts and forced to watch as the entire nation seemed to side with O'Brien, Leno took the time on "Oprah" to finally air his grievances and explain the reasoning behind his actions.

"I had a show; my show got canceled," he said. "They weren't happy with the other guy's show. They said, 'We want you to go back.' I said, 'OK.' And this seemed to make a lot of people really upset. And I go, 'Well, who wouldn't take that job, though? Who wouldn't do that?' And it was really agonizing. And I would spend a lot of time just thinking about it, going, 'I think I'm a good guy. Am I not a good guy?' Maybe I'm just one of those guys who thinks I see everything with the rose-colored glasses and the world is falling around you."

Asked if he was being treated unfairly in the media, Leno said, "I think so, but I think you have to look for a bad guy."

Leno also admitted he lied to his viewers in 2004 when he said on air that he planned to retire once O'Brien took over "Tonight," a fiction he maintained in public for much of the next five years. "I told a little white lie on the air," he revealed. "It made it easier that way."

His intention the entire time was to launch a new show on a rival network after NBC's decision to give his show to O'Brien left Leno "devastated." "It broke my heart," he said.

But when NBC approached him with the idea to move to prime time, Leno said he took it because he was "comfortable" and starting a show on a new network would be "a lot of work." Still, he argued Conan could now start "a successful show on Fox or wherever else he goes."

"Good performer and good comic and a good guy," Leno said about O'Brien. "No animosity there."

Nor was there ill will in 2004, when the late-show succession plan was first hatched. Leno said the two hosts remained friendly. When Leno's prime-time show faltered after its launch and NBC suggested giving him a 30-minute program at 11:30 p.m., followed by Conan's "Tonight Show," Leno said he never thought his rival would reject the offer.

Asked to respond to accusations that moving "Tonight" to midnight would be destructive to the franchise, Leno said, "If you look at the ratings, it was already destructive to the franchise.

"It all comes down to numbers in show business," he added.

Before Leno returns to "Tonight" following the Winter Olympics, the comedian said "there's a lot of damage control that has to be done" and that he worries about rebuilding his audience after the feud. Can he regain the #1 late-night spot in the ratings now that David Letterman has assumed that perch?

"I don't know," he answered.

What do you think about Leno's "Oprah" appearance? Is he right that he's been vilified in the press for no reason? Let us know below!