US comedian Jay Leno suffered broken bones when he was knocked off a motorcycle, two months after undergoing surgery for serious burns.
The former Tonight Show host told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that he broke his collarbone and two ribs and cracked his kneecaps on January 17th.
The November garage fire and January crash both stemmed from his passion for working on vintage vehicles.
In November, he suffered burns on his face, hands and chest in a petrol fire while repairing the fuel line on a vintage car in a garage.
Last week, he was testing a 1940 motorcycle when he noticed the scent of leaking petrol, he told the Review-Journal’s John Katsilometes.
“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,” the 72-year-old said.
“So, you know, I didn’t see it until it was too late.”
He insisted he was OK and would even be working this weekend, adding that the intensity of the coverage of the November fire made him reluctant to say anything in the days since last week’s accident.
Jay Leno, playing Encore Theater in March, suffered broken bones in a motorcycle accident this month.
https://t.co/l3TsJXbJR6— Las Vegas Review-Journal (@reviewjournal) January 27, 2023
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Leno took over NBC’s Tonight show when long-time host Johnny Carson retired in 1992.
He was succeeded by Conan O’Brien in 2009, but the show’s ratings dropped and NBC brought Leno back as host in 2010. He remained in the job until Jimmy Fallon took over in 2014.
Leno turned his love of cars into a CNBC series, Jay Leno’s Garage, and he hosts a revival of the game show You Bet Your Life.
He was in hospital for nine days after the fire but was back performing stand-up at a southern California club six days after his release, People magazine reported last year.
