You can’t keep Jay Leno down.
After suffering a nasty fall that left him badly bruised, the former “Tonight Show” host, 74, was spotted grabbing lunch at one of Los Angeles’ favorite burger joints — In-N-Out.
Though Leno’s injuries were still on display — the left side of his face badly bruised and his right wrist in a brace — he was without the patch over his left eye that he was seen wearing on Monday night outside of a comedy event in Beverly Hills.
The comedian appeared in good spirits — even waiting in line and smiling for the cameras after he enjoyed a burger and fries at In-N-Out in Burbank, Calif.
Leno’s tumble happened last week before he was slated to perform a set at the Palace Theatre in Greensburg, P.A., just outside of Pittsburgh.
Reportedly craving wings, he decided to get a bite at a sports lounge near the Hampton Inn where he was staying. Though only 200 yards from his hotel, the sports bar was a mile and a half away.
Without a car, Leno decided to take a shortcut — down a steep, grassy hill. While trying to traverse the slope’s terrain, he fell, only stopping when he reached the restaurant’s parking lot below.
“To get to [the sports lounge], 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,’” he told TMZ on Monday night.
“I fell down. Boom, boom, boom. I rolled down the hill, hit my head on a rock, knocked me in the eye.”
Leno revealed to Inside Edition that he broke his wrist, lost one of his fingernails and bruised the entire left side of his body. His eye was also damaged, swelling shut after the scrape.
“It’ll be fine,” he said of the eye injury. “I’m not worried about it.”
Despite the beating, Leno still performed later that night and traveled to Southern California the following day for a show at the Yaamava’ Casino in Highland, Calif. He finally sought medical attention once back in L.A.
“When I came back to LA, I went to the hospital,” Leno told TMZ. “It was only a couple of hours of the show, so. It’s not that big of a deal, it’s fine!”
“The great thing about this age [is] you don’t learn by your mistakes, you just keep doing the same stupid thing,” he joked, referencing an accident that left him with second-and-third-degree burns.
The automotive enthusiast was rushed to the hospital in 2022 after a gasoline fire broke out while he was working on one of his cars.
After suffering significant burns on his face, chest and hands, Leno underwent several surgeries and skin graft procedures at the Grossman Burn Center in West Hills, Calif.
Leno praised the center’s “unbelievable” work and even joked that he has a “brand-new face.”
While on Kelly Clarkson’s talk show last year, the comedian quipped, “You’d think there’d be a zipper here,” gesturing to his jawline.
Leno landed in the hospital again in January 2023 after breaking several bones in a motorcycle accident. Ever resilient, he told Page Six months later that he was “doing good” and “recovering.”
