Jay Leno is a bit worse for wear these days, sporting some shocking bruising to his face, an eye patch and a broken wrist.
The injuries came when the 74-year-old former late-night host fell down a 60-foot hill while on his way to dinner, he told reporters ahead of a show Monday night.
Leno, speaking to Inside Edition, said he’d been staying at the Hampton Inn outside Pittsburgh on Saturday when he decided to venture out for dinner ahead of a nearby show he was performing that night.
Comedian Jay Leno says his eye is swollen after he fell down a 60 foot hill. pic.twitter.com/FVbzOFU5Fl
— Inside Edition (@InsideEdition) November 19, 2024
While staff had given him directions to the restaurant, he said the walk would have been about two-and-a-half kilometres, so he decided to take a shortcut down a steep hill instead.
That’s when he said he took a tumble, leaving him with a broken wrist, a lost fingernail and substantial bruising on the left side of his body.
He showed off his injuries to the camera, lifting his eye patch to show his eye swollen shut, and his wrist wrapped in a cast.
“I fell down. Boom, boom, boom,” he told TMZ in a separate interview, explaining that he, “rolled down the hill, hit my head on a rock, knocked me in the eye.”
Despite the severity of the fall and injuries, Leno forged ahead with his Pennsylvania performance, just three hours after he fell. After the show, he said, he went to the hospital for treatment before flying back home to Los Angeles.
“It’s not that big a deal,” he told TMZ when asked if he was in pain.
This accident is the latest in a string of serious mishaps for the comedian; two years ago he suffered significant burns to his face, hands and chest after a gasoline fire erupted while he was working underneath one of his vintage cars at his California garage.
He underwent a surgical excision and grafting procedure to help treat the burns and was in hospital for 10 days.
And, just two months later in January 2023, he revealed that a motorcycle accident left him with a broken collarbone and ribs, as well as two cracked kneecaps.
When questioned by TMZ about his run of bad luck, Leno said: “The great thing about this age is that you don’t learn by your mistakes — you just keep doing the same stupid things.”