Television legend Jay Leno suffered serious burns on his face from a garage fire in November 2022. Two months later, he broke several bones after falling off his motorcycle in January 2023.
Nearly 20 months after the second accident, Jay Leno attended the 2024 Daytime Beauty Awards on Sept. 30. The 74-year-old comedian presented his surgeon, Dr. Peter Grossman, with the Outstanding Achievement in Medicine Award.
E! News spoke to Leno on the red carpet for the Daytime Beauty Awards ceremony. The former “The Tonight Show” show host told the outlet, “It’s good. Things are good. I can’t complain.”
Additionally, Jay Leno joked about his serious accidents between November 2022 and January 2023. He hoped his “next chapter” would not include his “next accident.”
In November 2022, Leno was at his garage in Burbank, California, when a gasoline fire broke out. The Television Hall of Famer sustained third-degree burns to his face, chest, and hands.
He was hospitalized at the Grossman Burn Center in Los Angeles and required several surgeries. According to Page Six, Dr. Grossman confirmed Leno underwent a grafting procedure to reconstruct his face.
“My recovery was nine days. I missed two days of work, so it was not bad,” Leno explained to E! News at the Daytime Beauty Awards. “Better than the face I had, so I’ll take it.”
Previously, Jay Leno discussed the garage fire and his “brand new face” while appearing on a March 2023 episode of “The Kelly Clarkson Show” daytime program.
“I was working on a car, and I got a face full of gasoline, and it caught fire,” Leno revealed to Kelly Clarkson. He then joked, “I had been eating a Flamin’ Hot Doritos, and when I bit into it, it set my face on fire.”
When Clarkson mentioned that she did not notice any differences with her guest’s face, Leno pointed at his chin and said, “You’d think there’d be a zipper here or something, but no.”
In addition to a new face, Leno also received a new ear. A March 2023 edition of Dana Carvey and David Spade’s “Fly on the Wall” podcast included Leno saying, “When you get burned in a fire, ears are like paper. They’re so thin it just goes up.”
He talked about getting a new ear on CNN in June 2023. The Emmy Award winner claimed having a “very good” doctor is the reason the transformation is unnoticeable.
Jay Leno also turned to Dr. Peter Grossman following his 2023 motorcycle accident, which led to a broken collarbone, two broken ribs, and cracked kneecaps.
“I’m riding my motorcycle, and a guy had a wire across the road, and boom, it tore my face,” Leno stated while honoring Grossman at the Daytime Beauty Awards, according to E! News.
He continued, “I called Dr. Grossman, and I said, ‘Listen, I need another face. The other face you got was great, but I just need another…’ So I guess I am officially a two-faced bastard now.”
Jay Leno served as the host of NBC’s “The Tonight Show” from 1992 until 2009. The Emerson College graduate also covers motorcycles and classic cars on the “Jay Leno’s Garage” digital series on YouTube.
