LOS ANGELES — For the third year in a row, Jay Leno is bouncing back after an ugly injury. This time around, the culprit was a steep hill that the 74-year-old comedian misjudged.
Leno was stepping out for dinner a few hours before his Friday show at the Palace Theatre in Pittsburgh when he opted for a shortcut — unfortunately, one that left him rolling 60 feet down a hill and hitting several rocks along the way, he told TMZ on Monday as he arrived at the Comedy for Koby event in Beverly Hills.
“I fell down, just boom, boom, boom,” he said, laughing at himself and flipping up his eye patch to reveal a sprawling bruise.
Along with hurting his eye, Leno broke his wrist and lost a nail, he told Inside Edition: “I am all black and blue.”
Despite the incident, the former host of “The Tonight Show” went on with his show as scheduled. In photos posted by the Pittsburgh venue, Leno can be seen sporting an eye patch. When you have 2,600 people waiting on you, he told TMZ, “The show must go on.”
Leno was later treated for his injuries upon returning to Los Angeles, where he also went ahead with a Saturday show at the Yaamava’ Theater near San Bernardino.
A representative for Leno did not reply immediately Tuesday to The Times’ request for comment.
Early last year, Leno crashed his motorcycle and wound up with a broken collarbone, two broken ribs and two cracked kneecaps.
“But I’m OK!” he told the Review-Journal at the time. “I’m working this weekend.”
Just two months before that, almost exactly two years ago, the “Jay Leno’s Garage” star was treated for second- and third-degree burns he sustained while working on an old car in his Burbank garage. Leno’s friend Dave Killackey, who was in the garage with him, later recounted the incident to “Today,” saying, “He downplays it all, but I’m telling you, he was really engulfed. I couldn’t see his face. It was a wall of fire.”
“The great thing about this age is you don’t learn by your mistakes,” he joked to TMZ Monday night. “You keep doing the same stupid thing.”
