Photo: Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty
Jay Lenohas been revving down the road to recovery — with a few jokes along the way — after two alarming accidents in the last five months left him seriously injured.
The formerTonight Showhost sustainedsevere second and third-degree burnsall over his body after a fiery car incident in his garage in November. Two months later, he survived a seriousmotorcycle crash.
On Tuesday’s episode ofFly on the Wall withDana CarveyandDavid Spade, the 67-year-oldWayne’s Worldstar told Leno:“You look great.”
Spade, 58, added that he if no one had told him about the injuries, he wouldn’t have been able to tell that Leno’s “face caught on fire.”
Jay Leno.Rodin Eckenroth/Getty
Leno, a famed workhorse, told the comics he didn’t slow down much at all while convalescing from his burns: “In eight days, I missed two shows.”
But then, two and a half months later, “I got a broken collarbone, I got two busted ribs, and I got two cracked kneecaps ‘cause I got clotheslined on my motorcycle.”
Leno joked that something was bound to happen since he was “a 72-year-old guy in an 83-year-old motorcycle,” then shared what was going through his mind before he crashed.
“Uh-oh it’s dripping gas,” he said. “[I though]I don’t want to catch fire again. Let me turn around.I turn around in a parking lot and a guy had a wire across a parking lot — but with no flag. And the sun was right here [in my eyes].”
He continued, “It cut my face again, so I call my face guy, I go, ‘Listen, you knowthe face you gave me, I gotta get it fixed again.’ He goes, ‘What’d you do?’ And I drove up there, and he fixed it.”
“This is a brand-new ear. When you get burned in a fire, ears are like paper, it’s nothing,” he added, before joking, “I got a buddy of mine who’s a moyle. He gave me a bag of grafts and they work out great.”
RELATED VIDEO:Jay Leno Shares the Shocking Details of His Burn Accident: ‘My Face Was on Fire’
Over nine days, Leno — whose wife of 42 years,Mavis, slept beside him at The Center — underwent two skin grafting surgeries (one with human cadaver skin and another with pig intestine) to help regenerate new healthy skin, as well as sessions in hyperbaric chambers to help oxygenate tissue. Within six days after he left the Center, Leno was back onstage, performing standup at the Comedy & Magic Club in Hermosa Beach, California.
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In an exclusive chat with PEOPLE a month after the accident, Leno described the ordeal in detail, stating, “It felt exactly like my face was on fire. Maybe like the most intense sunburn you’ve ever had, that’d be fair to say.”
As he continued to heal, Leno said he was aware that his situation could have been much worse. “I know how bad it could have been,” he explained. “But I’m OK. And I’m sure I’ll continue to do the same stupid things I’ve always done. Just maybe a little bit more carefully!”
source: people.com
