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Jay Leno brings donuts directly to the Hollywood screenwriters’ strike

Jay Leno brings donuts directly to the Hollywood screenwriters’ strike

Jay Leno nicely showed his solidarity with striking screenwriters across Hollywood this Tuesday.

The late-night legend made sure he didn’t leave empty-handed when he visited protesters outside Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California.

Leno was greeted with loud cheers as he handed out boxes of doughnuts to protesters who began marching outside Hollywood studios at midnight, just hours after the strike began.

Members of the Writers Guild of America West and the Writers Guild of America East walked out early Tuesday after contract negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents studios and streaming companies, reached an impasse.

Leno knows the impact a strike can have. His show, “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” replayed much of the 2007-2008 WGA strikes, which lasted 100 days. (HuffPost’s unionized staff is represented by the WGAE.)

The comedian first showed his support by handing out candy to writers outside Universal Studios at the start of the strike in November 2007.

His show continued without writers in early January 2008, and WGA reached an agreement with the studios on February 12.

Jay Leno at the NBCUniversal Summer TCA Tour in Beverly Hills in 2015 (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP, File)Jay Leno at the NBCUniversal Summer TCA Tour in Beverly Hills in 2015 (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP, File)

Jay Leno at the NBCUniversal Summer TCA Tour in Beverly Hills in 2015 (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP, File)

Jay Leno at the NBCUniversal Summer TCA Tour in Beverly Hills in 2015 (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP, File)

Leno wasn’t the only famous face spotted on the picket line this time.

Natasha Lyonne from “Poker Face” and Rob Lowe from “Parks and Recreations” strolled in front of the Paramount offices in Los Angeles.

Gillian Jacobs of “Community,” comedian Ike Barinholtz and Rachel Bloom, creator and star of “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,” all shared photos from the picket lines in LA. Former “SNL” actress Aidy Bryant and stand-up comedian Wanda Sykes were also spotted at protests in New York.

The writers are at loggerheads with studios over deteriorating working conditions across the industry. Their concerns include the formulas behind residual payments, studios’ policies on artificial intelligence and the use of gig economy-style “mini rooms” for streaming shows.

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