TV host and comedian Jay Leno suffers multiple injuries after falling down 60 foot hill and hitting head on rock

The comedian and former late-night TV host Jay Leno shared the details of his accident and subsequent injuries in recent interviews with Inside Edition and TMZ.

The 74-year-old, who hosted NBC's The Tonight Show from 1992 until 2009, told TMZ: "I fell down. Boom, boom, boom. I rolled down the hill, hit my head on a rock, knocked me in the eye."

Leno, who said he broke his wrist in the fall, was seen wearing a cast on his arm as well as an eye patch. The left side of his face was bruised, and the affected eye was swollen shut.

The accident took place Saturday night (November 16) while Leno was staying at a Hampton Inn about 30 miles outside of Pittsburgh, as reported by Inside Edition. Leno, who had a performance that day, decided to take a shortcut while walking to a local restaurant for dinner.

"To get to it (the restaurant), I didn't have a car, so you had to walk about a mile and a half around," Leno explained to TMZ. "I said ‘well, the hill doesn't look that steep . . . Let me see if I can go down the hill’. It would seem the move was not a good choice.

Despite his serious fall, hiwever, Leno went ahead with his performance in Pennsylvania, just three hours after the accident. He told TMZ he went to a local hospital for his injuries after returning to Los Angeles.

He went on to perform a stand-up comedy show in Beverly Hills, California, on Monday (November 18). When asked by TMZ if he was in pain after the show he replied: "It's not that big a deal.”

He also joked: "The great thing about this age, you don't learn by your mistakes. You just keep doing the same stupid thing.

It’s not the first time that Leno has injured himself. He sustained serious burns in a November 2022 accident where he was working on a car and ended up with gasoline in his face. Then, he had a motorcycle accident in January 2023 when he was knocked off his bike and also suffered with multiple broken bones.