Shortly after the start of the Writers Guild of America strike on November 5, the host of “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” told almost 80 of his staffers not to worry about their finances.

"He was on speaker phone. There were 80 of us. He told us not to panic. He said to trust him. He said: 'I can't get into details, but nobody will miss a car payment or lose their house. We're family. Trust me. I'm going to take care of this.' But that was the time we should have been looking for new job," he said at the time according to the Hollywood Reporter.

But this Friday NBC announced the staffers they all have been fired. In addition, they also weren’t guaranteed any comebacks with the show once it would air again.

NBC’s decision to fire the workers on the show was announced in a brief statement that said that it had "regretfully informed the people who work on 'The Tonight Show With Jay Leno' and 'Late Night With Conan O'Brien' that their services are not needed at this time due to our inability to continue production of the shows.”

"Some people were crying. Some people were screaming," said one member of the staff for Reuters.

The tensions at “Tonight Show” have been mounting for weeks, according to some staffers. They were increased by recent announcements that other late night-show hosts decided to keep their non-writing staffs.

That was the case of Conan O’Brien that confirmed on Thursday that he would pay the salaries of at least 50 nonwriting “Late Night” staffers out of his own pocket. David Letterman has also promised to continue to pay the salaries of staff members of his “Late Show” and Craig Ferguson’s “Late Late Show,” the two CBS late-night shows owned by his company, Worldwide Pants. And executives at both ABC and the Comedy Central cable network said they would continue to pay the staff members on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” “The Colbert Report” with Stephen Colbert and “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”

Leno has been confident that he would succeed to air the show through the strike period as well. But the show has been on reruns since the strike began.

In a press statement a representative for Leno said the host has distributed his standard Christmas bonuses early to soften the blow. Leno’s spokeperson said that the show host has given nearly $500,000 to his staff.