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Leno, 55, explained that the voice on the other end of the phone sounded "overly effusive," very grown-up and "a little scripted," the Associated Press reports. But he said the boy never asked for money.
Leno began receiving calls from the accuser in 2000, he testified. The late-night host, who often makes calls to children who are ill, said the boy called Leno his hero -- which he thought was strange.
"I'm not Batman. It seemed a little unusual," Leno said.
Leno said "I wasn't asked for money nor did I send any," but he did add that "It sounded suspicious when a young person got overly effusive. It just didn't click with me."
In his opening statement to the jury, Jackson's attorney Thomas Mesereau Jr. said that Leno was suspicious of the call and reported to Santa Barbara police that "something was wrong. They were looking for a mark." But Leno testified that it was the police who contacted him.
As he arrived at the Santa Maria, Calif., courthouse, Leno smiled to spectators and shook hands with sheriff's deputies.
On his show Monday night, Leno talked a lot about his upcoming court appearance. "I was called by the defense," said Leno, noting how often he had joked about Jackson. "Apparently they've never seen this program."
One more zinger: Referring to the heat wave gripping Southern California, Leno also said he's been "sweating like a Cub Scout" at Jackson's Neverland Ranch.
Jackson, 46, has pleaded not guilty to charges of molesting his accuser in February or March 2003, when the boy (a cancer patient) was 13, giving him alcohol and conspiring to hold the boy's family captive. Prosecutors contend Jackson wanted them to rebut a damaging TV documentary in which Jackson defended his practice of letting young children sleep in his bed.
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