Jay Leno fractures bones in motorcycle accident after garage fire

January 28, 2023

Jay Leno is recovering from a motorcycle accident last week that left him with multiple broken bones just months after he was badly burned in a fire at his Los Angeles-area garage.

On Friday, the comedian and talk show host revealed he was ‘on a clothesline’, fell off his motorbike and injured with broken ribs and other injuries in an accident on January 17 not far from the Burbank, Calif. facility that houses his car and motorcycle collection.

“I have a broken collarbone, a few broken ribs, and two cracked kneecaps,” Leno said in an interview. “But other than that, I’m fine.”

The 72-year-old former ‘Tonight Show’ host said he was working on a vintage motorcycle and was giving it a test drive, with its sidecar strapped on, when he noticed the smell of a gas leak. He said he adjusted the carburetor and went back to the garage.

“So I turn around, start going through a parking lot,” Leno said over the phone. “And there was a wire between two posts that wasn’t well marked and, boom, I just had – he made me a clothesline, hit me on the neck and threw me out of the bike.”

The comedian first told his accident story to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, saying he hadn’t discussed it earlier due to the overwhelming coverage of his recovery from his burns suffered in November.

Leno suffered severe burns to his hands and chest and third-degree burns to his face after a classic car in his collection caught fire on Nov. 12 in his garage.

Leno’s Burbank Garage, adjacent to Hollywood Burbank Airport, houses his roughly 180 cars and 160 motorcycles, according to duPont Registry, a marketplace and publication for collectors of rare and classic automobiles.

In an exclusive interview on NBC’s “TODAY,” Leno told Hoda Kotb that he was working on his vintage 1907 White Motor Co. steam car with a friend when he noticed the fuel line on the vehicle was clogged.

Leno said he went under the vehicle to try to fix it. “And I said, ‘Blow some air in the line,'” he recalled. “Then all of a sudden, boom, my face was full of gas. And then the pilot light blew out, and my face caught on fire.

“My friend pulled me out and jumped on top of me and kind of smothered the fire,” Leno said.

The comedian was transported by ambulance to the hospital and then sent to the Grossman Burn Center in Los Angeles, where he received hyperbaric treatment, an oxygen therapy that “can accelerate the healing of burns”, according to the establishment’s website.

On Friday, Leno said over the phone: “I just had a little accident right after my other accident. He’s a 72-year-old man riding an 83-year-old motorcycle.”

He expressed some guilt at being injured so soon after Grossman’s medical staff quickly helped him back into shape.

“Grossman gave me a new face, and I’m going to hit this one and have to find another one,” he said. “But luckily I didn’t have to. So I’m fine.

Leno doesn’t seem to be slowing down, even though CNBC said it has essentially canceled its prime-time lineup, which includes “Jay Leno’s Garage,” a show in which the comedian shows off rare vehicles and rides with celebrities.

“While CNBC is doubling down on its core content of business news and personal finance information, it has extended the strategy to its prime-time programming and, as a result, has not renewed Jay Leno’s Garage,” a said a CNBC spokesperson.

The comic suggested the TV show would be pitched to other networks. His YouTube series of the same name, in which he gets more hands-on, reveals the progress of restoration projects and highlights new vehicle models, seems unaffected.

“When they hired us, it was somewhat unusual to have this car show in the middle of financial news,” Leno said. “It was very successful. But now they’ve decided to go with direct financial news across the board. So we’ll move on. No hard feelings or anything.”

Despite his injuries, Leno said he will continue to perform stand-up, undeterred, as he prepares for his debut at the Encore Theater at Wynn Las Vegas for a show scheduled for March 31.

“I don’t miss anything,” Leno said. “I have a concert on Sunday.”

NBC News and CNBC are NBCUniversal brands under the umbrella of its news division.

Chantal Da Silva