Jay Leno Breaks His Silence To Address Claims His Facial Injuries Stemmed

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Last month, we reported that the former Tonight Show host Jay Leno had suffered serious facial injuries. (And they are bad, as you can see from our cover image!)

Though he claimed that the injuries resulted from falling 60 feet down a hill, rumors have abounded that they actually came from Leno being beaten up by the mob over alleged gambling debts.

Now, Leno, 74, is finally addressing these rumors for the first time.

Leno Addresses Mob Rumors

While appearing on Bill Maher’s Club Random podcast, Leno was asked directly about the mob rumors.

“Well, I like the idea that they wouldn’t just take one of my cars for the gambling debt,” Leno replied.

This was a witty reference to Leno being known to own nearly 200 cars. He enjoys collecting vintage vehicles, with some of them being worth millions of dollars.

Though he went on to deny that he was beaten up, Leno admitted that he had a run-in with a member of the mob during his early days of trying to make it as a standup comedian!

Leno’s Mob Run-In

“I was pretty smart,” Leno recalled. “I remember years ago, I was at [the East Coast-based comedy club] Catch a Rising Star, and I was onstage, and this guy — a mob guy — comes up to me afterwards and he goes, ‘Hey, you’re a funny kid. You’re a funny kid.’ ”

“He takes $100 and he puts it in my pocket,” he continued. ”I say, ‘Oh thank you.’ I say, ‘Look, I don’t mean any disrespect, but, you know, give it to the church or something … I’m okay, but thank you.’ And he says to me, ‘You know, you’re a smart kid. You don’t take money from people like me. That’s smart.’ And nobody ever bothered me again.”

While Leno claims to have never had problems with the mob himself, he did see them beat up “comics left and right” for saying things that they didn’t like onstage.

On top of all of that, Leno said that these rumors can’t be true because he despises gambling.

“I don’t gamble,” he alleged. “Losing 100 bucks makes me feel stupider than winning one thousand makes me feel good. Because I go, ‘I could have taken my wife to dinner.’”

Leno’s Fall

Leno reportedly fell 60 feet down a hill while he was staying at a Hampton Inn about 30 miles outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was in town for a standup comedy performance that was set to take place that night. While walking to dinner at a local restaurant, Leno decided to take what he thought was a shortcut.

“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. “I said, ‘Well, the hill doesn’t look that steep. … Let me see if I can go down the hill.”

This turned out to be a big mistake.

“I broke my wrist,” Leno admitted. “Lost my nail on the finger, I’m all black and blue from 60 feet of hitting rocks.”

Despite the seriousness of his fall, Leno still performed his gig just three hours later! He only went to the hospital for his injuries after he’d returned to Los Angeles.

“It’s not that big a deal,” he replied when asked if he was in pain days later.

Watch Leno talk more about this in the video below.