Due to not one, but two serious incidents that left him with multiple injuries across his body, Jay Leno has had a challenging few months.
The 73-year-old singer was injured in a horrible car fire on November 12 of last year while working on a vintage car in the garage of his Los Angeles home, and he later spent nine days at West Hills Hospital’s Grossman Burn Center. As a result, he suffered serious second-and third-degree burns. A little more than a month later, on January 27, he was hurt while operating a motorcycle, shattering his collarbone and two ribs.
The comic, who currently hosts both Jay Leno’s Garage and the NBC game show You Bet Your Life, has no intention of stopping anytime soon despite the string of disasters.
Leno spoke candidly to Page Six at the Hot Wheels: Ultimate Challenge premiere about his retirement plans—spoiler alert: he doesn’t have any—and what it would take for him to step away from the spotlight.
The seasoned late-night anchor adamantly stated, “Unless I have a stroke,” he has no plans to retire. He continued, “Then you slow down.”
He argued that he wouldn’t quit his job until his health made it absolutely necessary, saying, “That’s when you retire when you have your stroke.”
Leno handled each of his recent crashes admirably. He underwent numerous grafting procedures during a nine-day hospital stay, yet he quickly resumed driving and even made it back to the scene of his collision. He returned to the stage less than a week later at the Comedy Magic Club in Hermosa Beach, California, to a sold-out audience and standing ovations.
In an interview with People a month after the incident, the former late-night anchor spoke about his car fire catastrophe and said: “When you work with cars, you have a lot of accidents,” but added: “But this is bigger than most.”
He acknowledged, “I knew how close I was to the pilot light and thought, ‘Uh oh.'” When he was clearing a clogged fuel line in the undercarriage of a 1907 White Steam Car, he said he got a “full face of gasoline.”
It “felt exactly like my face was on fire,” he commented, “Maybe like the most intense sunburn you’ve ever had, that’d be fair to say.”
While in the hospital, he underwent two skin grafting procedures to help regenerate better new skin and hyperbaric oxygen therapy sessions to assist oxygenate tissue. He didn’t want to take pills during this period because they were “a reminder that I’m an idiot,” so they were a diversion.
His family and notable friends also generously demonstrated their support for him. His 43-year-old wife Mavis informed him that “[John] Travolta gave me a big Italian basket, Tom Selleck sent flowers, and Russell Crowe called from Australia” while he was recuperating at the burn center. Considering how long I’ve worked in this field, it was really moving to feel such love.
