Jay Leno Shares Health Update After Dangerous Fall & ‘Hitting Head on a Rock’

Jay Leno is in recovery mode after tumbling down a hill in California over the weekend, leaving him with a large facial bruise, a bandaged wrist, and an eye patch.

In a video obtained by TMZ on Monday (November 19), the Tonight Show alum spoke about his current condition, saying he’s “holding up fine.” He addressed his obvious injuries, including a purple-blue welt from the fall that covered half of his face, and the eye patch over part of the welt.

Leno shared that he was staying at a hotel on top of the hill and fell while attempting to walk to a nearby restaurant at the bottom. “I was staying at a hotel on a hill,” he explained. “I said, ‘Where’s a good place to eat?’ ‘Oh, the bottom.’ The restaurant was there.”

“To get to it, I didn’t have a car, so you had to walk about a mile and a half around. I said, ‘Well, the hill doesn’t look that steep. It’s about 60–70 feet. Let me see if I can go down the hill,’” Leno explained.

“I fell down. Boom, boom, boom. I rolled down the hill, hit my head on a rock, knocked me in the eye.”

The 74-year-old shared that he was still able to perform that night at the Comedy for Koby event in Beverly Hills (where the shocking video was taken). After the performance, he immediately sought medical attention in Los Angeles. He explained that his fall occurred “only a couple of hours” before the show started.

“It’s not that big of a deal. It’s alright, it’s alright,” Leno added. The great thing about this age [is] you don’t learn by your mistakes, you just keep doing the same stupid thing,” he quipped.

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The Jay Leno’s Garage star is no stranger to injuries, as he implied above. In November 2022, he was toiling away on one of his cars in his garage when it caught on fire, having to spend several days in the ICU. In 2023, he told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that he was knocked off his motorcycle and broke multiple bones.

“It’s so funny you should say that. That was the first accident. OK?” he told the outlet about the oddity of the back-to-back injuries. “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.”