Jay Leno breaks multiple bones in motorcycle accident after car fire
Jay Leno is once again on the mend.
The former “Tonight Show” host revealed in a new interview that he is recovering from multiple broken bones that he sustained in a motorcycle accident.
“It’s so funny you should say that,” Leno said in response to a Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter asking how he was doing in his recovery from a November 2022 car fire that severely burned him.
“That was the first accident. OK?” the 72-year-old continued. “Then just last week, I got knocked off my motorcycle. So I’ve got a broken collarbone. I’ve got two broken ribs. I’ve got two cracked kneecaps.”
Leno assured the interviewer that he is “OK” after the Jan. 17 accident and is even working this weekend.
The “Jay Leno’s Garage” host, who will return to Sin City in March to perform for the first time since the car fire, explained that he had been testing a 1940 Indian motorcycle and noticed the scent of leaking gas — an uncanny similarity to the explosion in his garage just months prior — and wanted to pull over.
“So 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,” he explained. “So, you know, 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.”
Leno decided to keep the crash quiet because of the media coverage surrounding his November hospitalization and subsequent recovery.
“You know, after getting burned up, you get that one for free,” he said. “After that, you’re Harrison Ford, crashing airplanes. You just want to keep your head down.”
Leno was working with one of his vehicles, a 1907 White Steam car, on Nov. 12 when a fuel leak caused his hands and face to be doused with gas, which subsequently set him ablaze.
The former late-night host was rushed to a burn center and underwent several forms of treatment, including two grafting procedures to remove unhealthy tissue and promote healing and several hyperbaric chamber sessions in an effort to “decrease swelling” and “increase blood flow with good oxygenation.”
He remained hospitalized for 10 days and went back to work shortly after his release.
