A few nights ago, while interviewing Ryan Phillippe on his show, Jay Leno ditched the usual question/answer format to basically goad Ryan into pulling his 'gayest face' until he threatened to walk offstage.

And now Jay Leno has apologised. He's now come to realise that mocking homosexuals in the 21st century is both outmoded and offensive and has promised that next time Ryan Phillipe comes on his show he'll only restrict himself to try and make him jump up and down for food in a loincloth like the black people do.

If you believe what you read, then Jay Leno is everyone's ideal dinner guest because not only would he regale you with anecdotes about his 16 years spent interviewing the world's biggest stars, but he could also bore you into a coma with endless car talk and – if you're really lucky – chuck in a few breathtakingly inappropriate cracks about gay people who pull funny faces when they talk.

Or at least that's what Jay Leno used to be able to do. Now the liberal elite have banned Jay from ridiculing homosexuals just because he made a breathtakingly ignorant remark to Ryan Phillippe during an interview with him last Thursday. What next? Telling us we can't dress in hoods and set fire to immigrant children any more? For fuel or fun? Once again, this is a prime example of political correctness gone haywire.

But anyway, back to the interview. Discussing Ryan Phillippe's first role as a gay teenager on a soap opera on his show, Jay Leno said:

"Say that camera is your gay lover. Can you give me your gayest look? Say that camera is Billy Bob [Thornton]—Billy Bob has just ridden in shirtless from Wyoming."

To which Ryan Phillippe wriggled around uncomfortably while making semi-joking threats to walk off if the gay jokes continued. Seriously, that boy. He won't talk about that time he broke up his marriage by cheating on his wife and he won't pull exaggerated gay faces into a camera. What does that leave to discuss? Igby Goes Down? Please.

Now, following and instant and audible backlash from both the gay and sensible onlooker communities, Jay Leno has issued a sincere apology from the bottom of his chin:

"In talking about Ryan's first role, I realize that what I said came out wrong, I certainly didn't mean any malice. I agree it was a dumb thing to say, and I apologize."

Of course, Jay Leno is absolutely right to apologise to his offended viewers. As others have commented, Jay Leno wouldn't have dreamt of asking Ryan Phillippe to pull his blackest face or his Jewiest face, would he? Which is a shame because, ironically, Ryan Phillippe's Jewiest face is downright hilarious. You ain't never seen a Jewier face, that's for sure.

Read more:

Jay Sorry for "Gayest Look" Crack – E! Online 

Us too, but it turns out that everyone was wrong about it – because Ryan Phillippe has just been interviewed in W Magazine and he revealed that he was so cut up about divorcing his vastly more successful wife that he literally didn't get out of bed for five months.

Also, according to Ryan Phillippe, "an outside person can never cause a divorce." So, lads, remember to keep that argument in mind for when your wife catches you boning other women. We hear that one's watertight from a legal perspective.

It must be hard being married to Reese Witherspoon. Partly because you'd have to wake up every morning thinking "That chin! What was I thinking?" and partly because she's an Oscar-winning A-list actress who – aside from that pants-looking Rendition movie she was in – can do no wrong while you're, well, you're just rubbish old Ryan Phillippe. 

Inevitably resentment is bound to set in at some point in that scenario, especially when you can tell that Reese is only faking her enthusiasm for Antitrust because she's too busy being America's Sweetheart. And that's why, when Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Phillippe split up after seven years of marriage, it wasn't really a surprise to learn that it was probably because Ryan was having it off with another woman.

That was over a year ago, though, and Ryan and Reese have managed to keep a dignified silence about the divorce throughout, which happens so infrequently these days that it has to be applauded. Or at least it would have to be applauded, except that Ryan Phillippe has decided to blab all about how the divorce made him all unhappy inside for a while. According to E! Online:

Ryan Phillippe calls his divorce from Reese Witherspoon, after seven years of marriage, "the darkest, saddest place I had ever been." The actor, 33, tells W magazine, "There were a good four or five months of not being able to get out of bed. It was the worst time in my life." But that was then. "You get through it," Phillippe says now. "It's a process that's not easy, but I get less and less sad about it every day" … The reason for the breakup was "far more complicated and far less interesting than it's made out to be. To look and search for these salacious reasons, to pin it on a person, or a moment in someone's life, it's not realistic."

A few points about the above:

1) Is it just us, or is clear that Ryan Phillippe is doing his best to weasel out of the fact that his marriage went down the toilet because he was having it off with another woman? 

2) He stayed in bed for five months because he was so sad? How must that have made the girl he was having it off with feel, since he stayed with her after he divorced Reese? Pretty lousy, we'd guess. Also, to what extent did Ryan stay in bed for five months? Did he get up eventually each day? Did he only get up for emergencies? What if he needed a poo? Did he just hang his bum off the side of the bed, or did he just go wherever he happened to be lying? We need to know these very important points.

3) The divorce was "the darkest, saddest place I had ever been." Oh really? Try going to Chatham, pal.

Read more:

Ryan Phillippe Opens Up About Divorce from Reese - People