Over the past decade, David Letterman — who walked away from "Late Night" in 2015 — has had time to reflect on the ups and downs of his career. 

In a recent interview, the 77-year-old former late night television host opened up about the challenges he faced while in show business and explained why he thinks the pressures of Hollywood made him become a worse person. 

"In show business, I find that I have pretended to be someone I’m truly not," Letterman told GQ. "In my life here in Indiana and at my home with my family, I am probably the person I actually am. And I regret that they don’t kind of cross at any point."

When asked whether show business made him a worse person, Letterman was quick to answer. 

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"Yes. You're exactly right," he said. "And I don't know, maybe it's only because I went through show business. I got that out of my system eventually that I can concentrate on being a better person and probably couldn't have reached this point if I had not gone through the exercise of trying to succeed at show business.

"I just feel like personally, I have greater humanity than I did when I was in show business. It was all single-minded and great pressure, real unimagined, and I felt like it's all on me, and it's all on me, and that it was all nonsense."

Letterman, who recently launched Letterman TV FAST Channel on Samsung TV Plus, acknowledged that he was often portrayed as "miserable" during most of his interviews in the ‘80s and ’90s. 

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"There's a couple of things going on there," he said. "I was drinking heavily in those days — that may have provided some fuel for misery. And I guess not achieving what I imagined to be, like — you take Johnny Carson, there's never going to be anybody as good at that kind of show as Johnny. Nobody better. Maybe there are people now who are excellent broadcasters and as good as Johnny, but nobody better. So here I am thinking: ‘Oh crap, I am not going to be as good as Johnny. What am I doing here?’"

Letterman walked away from "Late Night" in 2015 after hosting the show for 22 years. 

"For the last handful of years, my favorite part of the show was just talking to people," Letterman said of his experience towards the end of his run. "Because doing comedy each and every night, each and every night, each and every night, that's meaningful and not just laughable, that's tough. That's really tough. And I was always lucky to have men and women who were really smart and really good writers. I just — I'd be in the next room. But the thing that I enjoyed mostly was actually just talking to people."

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But along the way, the Indiana native faced plenty of uphill battles. 

"I felt like whenever I would go out, there would be an expectation to which I could not live up," he admitted. "'Oh, here he comes. He’s going to do a show. He is going to be funny. We’re going to be entertained.' And I kind of felt like that expectation takes quite a lot of energy, so I didn’t want to bleed it off before or after the actual show, which was always in desperate need of entertainment."

These days, Letterman says he's a much happier person living in his home state of Indiana. 

"All I cared about was television, one hour of television that I was responsible for, for 30 years," he said. "That's all I cared about. Everything fell apart, went away. I didn't even know if it was falling apart or not. And now I have the energy and the broader focus to recognize humanity has other fulfilling pursuits."

While it's been nearly a decade since he retired from Late Night, the TV host said he's not sure he'll ever fully retire. 

"Retirement is a myth. Retirement is nonsense," said Letterman, who still hosts a talk show, Netflix's "My Next Guest Needs No Introduction." 

"You won't retire. The human mechanism will not allow you to retire."

"As long as you are healthy, you still want to produce," he added. "And you will find ways to — once I stopped doing the show, it took me a couple of years to figure out that, oh, this is a completely different rhythm. And without the rhythm that you're accustomed to, largely unsatisfying. So, you got to find something that's important to you."

Jay Leno paid his dues by appearing on fellow comedian Bill Maher's "Club Random" podcast.

The former "Tonight Show" host clarified a floating rumor that injuries to his face were from a beating by the mob due to owed gambling debts.

In November, Leno revealed that he broke his wrist and sustained significant bruising on his face and body after falling down a 60-foot hill outside his hotel.

Hours after the fall, the acclaimed stand-up comedian took the stage for a show wearing an eye patch.

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Maher asked Leno about the rumors, to which Jay responded, "Well, I like the idea that they wouldn’t just take one of my cars for the gambling debt."

Leno, a long-time automobile enthusiast, is known to have hundreds of collectible cars in his personal garage worth millions of dollars.

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He did, however, remember an encounter with the mafia when he was a young comedian.

"I was pretty smart," he said. "I remember years ago I was at Catch a Rising Star, and I was onstage, and this guy – a mob guy – comes up to me afterwards, and he goes, 'Hey, you’re a funny kid. You’re a funny kid.'

"He takes $100, and he puts it in my pocket. I say, ‘Oh, thank you.' I say, ‘Look, I don’t mean any disrespect but, you know, give it to the church or something… I’m OK, but thank you.’ And he says to me, ‘You know, you’re a smart kid. You don’t take money from people like me. That’s smart.’ And nobody ever bothered me again."

While Leno admitted he never had any trouble, he witnessed the mob "kick the crap out of comics left and right" for being "wise a------s" onstage.

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He also didn't understand the rumors simply because he doesn't like losing money.

"I don't gamble," Leno confessed. "Losing 100 bucks makes me feel stupider than winning one thousand makes me feel good. Because I go, ‘I could have taken my wife to dinner.'"

Last month, the comedian told "Inside Edition" that he broke his wrist, sustained significant bruising on his face and body and lost a fingernail after falling down a rocky 60-foot hill. 

His hotel fall was just the latest in a string of traumatic incidents for Leno, who was also "knocked off" his motorcycle in January 2023.

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Leno sustained two broken ribs, broke his kneecaps and a collarbone after being clotheslined while riding his motorcycle through a parking lot. 

"I turned down a side street and cut through a parking lot, and unbeknownst to me, some guy had a wire strung across the parking lot but with no flag hanging from it," Leno told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

"I didn’t see it until it was too late. It just clotheslined me and, boom, knocked me off the bike. The bike kept going, and you know how that works out."

In 2022, Leno underwent multiple surgeries after suffering third-degree burns in a gasoline fire. Leno reportedly suffered significant burns to his face and hands as well as his chest while working underneath a car in his Burbank-area garage.

Fox News Digital's Lauryn Overhultz contributed to this report.