Jay Leno has been seen in public for the first time since a serious motorcycle accident.
The retired talk show host required surgery after the early January accident, according to The New York Times.
The New York Post’s Page Six obtained photos of Leno pulling into his garage in a Tesla vehicle on Friday.
The late-night veteran appeared in good spirits, laughing and joking with the press as he arrived at his residence.
Jay Leno appears unscathed in first photos since motorcycle crash https://t.co/oeG06d6LGX pic.twitter.com/uBzgnIAiop
— Page Six (@PageSix) January 27, 2023
Leno collided with a wire in a Las Vegas side street when driving a 1940 Indian four-cylinder motorcycle in the accident.
“I didn’t see it until it was too late. It just [clotheslined] me and, boom, knocked me off the bike. The bike kept going, and you know how that works out,” the comedian told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
The collision left him with some serious injuries. Leno suffered from cracked kneecaps, broken ribs and a broken collarbone from the crash.
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But he’s handling the difficulty with his classic levity.
“I’m OK, I’m working. I’m working this weekend,” Leno told the Review-Journal. He’s slated to headline a comedy event at the Encore Theater this weekend.
Leno cracked a joke about his latest accident in a Friday tweet that made reference to actor Jeremy Renner, who recently was seriously injured in an accident involving his snowplow.
I was riding my motorcycle up in Lake Tahoe and I came around the corner and bam, I crashed into Jeremy Renner’s snowplow.
— Jay Leno (@jayleno) January 27, 2023
The accident was the second that Leno experienced in recent months. Leno was seriously burned in a garage fire late last year.
Leno was still scarred by the burns in the Post’s photographs. He’s received medical treatment in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber for them.
Speaking to the Review-Journal, the comedian explained why he’d kept a low profile after the second accident — seeking to avoid comparisons to accident-prone acting legend Harrison Ford.
“You know, after getting burned up, you get that one for free,” Leno said of the November incident.
“After that, you’re Harrison Ford, crashing airplanes. You just want to keep your head down.”
