Jay Leno jokes about being “new face of comedy” after surgery

Jay Leno is on the mend after multiple surgeries following a horrible accident in his garage less than four months ago. As expected, Leno has taken the approach of discussing both the accident and the procedures through a humorous manner.

In an interview with The Kelly Clarkson Show, Jay Leno showed off his “new face”, which came about due to two skin grafting surgeries over the course of just over one week. “Only for the second time in my career am I the new face of comedy. I got it once in the ’80s and now I get it again. That’s a brand new ear!” He added, “You think there’d be a zipper here or something, but no this is like a brand new face.”

Jay Leno continued, joking about his accident in a good-natured way. “This is a brand new face…It’s unbelievable. I was working on a car and I got a face full of gasoline and it caught fire…I had been eating a flaming hot Dorito and when I bit into it, it set my face on fire…No, no, but it was interesting. It was all third-degree burns. It was pretty bad.”

The surgeries were a result of Jay Leno suffering significant burns while working on a 1907 White Steam Car. Shortly after the accident, Jay Leno said, “It felt exactly like my face was on fire… Maybe like the most intense sunburn you’ve ever had, that’d be fair to say.” He also recalled that he “got a face full of gasoline… I knew how close I was to the pilot light and I thought ‘Uh oh.’”

Although Jay Leno, 72, persevered through his accident, it was announced in January that CNBC would not renew Jay Leno’s Garage, which focused on one of Leno’s greatest passions: automobiles. The show debuted in 2015 and ran for seven seasons. Still, Leno is far from being out of work, as he currently hosts the revival of You Bet Your Life.

Now that Jay Leno’s Garage has been canceled, what do you hope to see from the comic in the future? Let us know in the comments section below!