Jay Leno retired as the host of The Tonight Show nearly a decade ago, and the free time allowed him to really focus on his love for cars and motorcycles. In late 2022 and early 2023, however, the comedian was involved in a couple of accidents related to those hobbies. Jay Leno suffered serious burns in a garage fire and then Leno broke multiple bones in a motorcycle accident a couple of months later. A year after those scary situations, Leno provided an update on how his passion for riding motorcycles and working with cars has changed.
It turns out, the injuries 73-year-old Jay Leno suffered in the accidents weren’t very much of a deterrent when it comes to doing what he loves, as the former talk show host humorously told ET at the Kennedy Center Honors on December 3 that he’s pretty set in his ways. In Leno’s words:
I'm still riding motorcycles. I'm still falling off, I'm still working on cars. No, once a guy learns [something], you can't teach him new tricks.
Jay Leno admitted that the incidents didn’t inspire him to give up riding motorcycles, but possibly more surprising is that none of the subsequent falls he’s apparently suffered have done anything to keep him off the bike either. In fact, he doubled-down on the sentiments when asked how the accidents changed his perspective on working with vehicles or his view on life overall, saying:
It hasn't changed it at all. Once a man hits 40, you can't convince him of anything else.
The man knows what he likes, and not even a couple of scares — and apparently continued falls off his motorcycles — can rewire his brain at this point in life.
In November 2022 the retired late-night host was working on a steam car in his personal garage when he got sprayed by some gas and it ignited. The car reportedly burst into flames, burning the left side of Jay Leno’s face. Just a couple of months later, in January 2023, he was riding one of his vintage motorcycles when he was clotheslined by a wire that had been strung across a parking lot. At the time he said that accident had resulted in a broken collarbone, two broken ribs and two cracked kneecaps.
The former Tonight Show host has spoken before about whether or not those incidents would slow him down, insisting that the only thing that could possibly force him to retire would be a stroke. As it is, he has said he feels fortunate that he has the financial stability to afford the physical therapy and other medical care he needed following the mishaps, saying he’s “luckier than most people.”
His sense of humor has certainly not taken a hit, either, and he drew a mixed bag of responses when he compared his situation to Jeremy Renner’s near-fatal snow plow accident. But that is certainly Jay Leno’s brand of humor, as he gave the media his prediction for his own future, saying:
Oh, riding motorcycles and falling off!
It sounds like Jay Leno is determined to continue riding motorcycles and working with cars, so it’s probably a relief that the injuries he suffered in the past year’s accidents didn't prohibit him from pursuing those passions. Hopefully, though, the “falling off” part of the above prediction won’t be a regular occurrence going forward.
