Jay Leno ‘all black and blue’ after falling down a hill
CNN
By Lianne Kolirin, CNN
(CNN) — Jay Leno is “black and blue” after falling down a 60-foot hill on his way out for dinner.
The former “Tonight Show” host, who is 74, suffered significant bruising to the left side of his face during the accident at the weekend, he told reporters ahead of a show in Beverly Hills on Monday night.
Leno, who was wearing a patch over his left eye, told “Inside Edition” that he had been staying at a Hampton Inn about 30 miles outside of Pittsburgh on Saturday night. He took the tumble while he walked toward a restaurant close to the hotel, ahead of a performance he was doing nearby.
Showing off his injuries on camera, Leno revealed that he broke his wrist, lost a fingernail and is “all black and blue” – on the left-hand side of his body, as well as his face. He also lifted up his patch to reveal that his eye is swollen shut.
In a separate interview on the same evening, Leno told TMZ that he did not have a car that night and that the route that staff at the hotel had directed him on would have involved walking for about a mile and a half.
So he decided to take a shortcut down a hill instead.
He told TMZ that he thought: “The hill doesn’t look that steep – about 60, 70 feet. Let me see if I can down there… (he screams) and then I fell down, boom, boom, boom.”
Leno said he “hit a bunch of rocks” but that did not stop him from going on to perform just three hours later. He was only treated in hospital once he was back home in Los Angeles.
“It isn’t a big deal, it’s alright,” he told TMZ.
CNN has reached out to Leno’s representatives for comment.
The fall comes two years after Leno suffered severe burns to his face and body. The star was treated in LA’s Grossman Burn Center in November 2022 for injuries to his face, chest and hands that were the result of a fire in his home garage.
Leno, an avid car collector, had been working underneath a vehicle when he was burned.
Just months after that incident, he broke his collarbone and two ribs and cracked both kneecaps in a motorbike collision.
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.”
Leno will be performing on Wednesday evening at a charity event in aid of the burns hospital that treated him in 2022.
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CNN’s Stella Chan contributed reporting.
