Earlier this week, Jay Leno was injured after he took a tumble down a 60-foot hill outside a hotel in Pennsylvania. Allegedly the former Tonight Show host was trying to find his way to a restaurant to order some food. However, not everything adds up in this story about an aging comedian falling down a dirt path.
On November 19, Inside Edition caught up with the very bruised and battered Jay Leno in Beverly Hills, California. He told the outlet that while staying at a Hampton Inn outside of Pittsburgh, he tried to take a shortcut to a restaurant down a steep hill instead of walking a “mile and a half down the road.” He lost his footing and rolled down the hill, hitting several rocks on a small dirt path on his way down. As a result of his fall he broke his wrist, lost a fingernail, gave himself a big shiner on his left eye and bruised much of his face. Three hours later, Leno—now wearing an eye patch—did his comedy show as planned, then went to a hospital after arriving back in Los Angeles, he says.
Jay Leno did in fact fall down a small but steep hill and got injured. That much is true. And if that’s good enough for you, then you can stop reading right now. But I have questions about everything else.
Questions about Jay Leno’s Fall
For starters, Inside Edition later reported that after his fall, Leno arrived at a restaurant near the hotel called The Boulevard and ordered a chicken parm. The manager of the restaurant told Inside Edition that Leno arrived at the place without a reservation for lunch, ordered the dish with some garlic bread and then left.
However, The Boulevard is a restaurant located about 750 feet away from the hotel. That’s not too far away, but Leno told Inside Edition he didn’t have a car at the time. (Which is very ironic considering how many cars this dude owns.)
Meanwhile, down that hill where Leno took his fall, there is a sports bar that specializes in selling wings. And according to a Reddit post, this is actually where Leno was heading when he fell. They suggest that Leno was craving some Buffalo wings and took the dirt path that had been cut into the hill by other people taking that same shortcut, didn’t realize how steep it was, and fell.
And this makes sense because in a different interview with TMZ, Leno says that someone at the hotel told him that there was a a good place to eat at “the bottom of this hill.” That sounds like someone pointing Leno to the sports bar at the bottom of the small hill, and not the restaurant up the road for some chicken parm.
Adding credence to this theory is the fact after his tumble, Leno visited a local CVS and bought an eye patch, as documented by a worker via a selfie. The nearest CVS is just up the road from the sports bar.
And yet, there’s the small problem that nobody at the sports bar remembers Leno entering and ordering anything that day. Local news site Triblive reports that the manager on shift that day doesn’t remember Leno showing up, and nobody he asked could recall seeing the comedian eat some wings.
So that seems to indicate that the manager at The Boulevard was telling the truth and that Leno walked down to the joint, had some chicken parm, and then left short after falling down the hill and hurting himself. But it’s also possible that someone is trying to spin a good story so a major news outlet will highlight the location for some free publicity.
What (Probably) Happened, Maybe…
I’ve tried to piece together the stories and comments from Leno and everyone else, and I think this is what happened.
Leno was told he could get some food at a place down the hill from the hotel. He walks out, tries to take a shortcut, and falls. Injured, he likely calls someone (or someone is with him and sees it happen) and they grab a car.
At this point, someone points out that the restaurant is actually down the road and not in the parking lot near the hotel. So they head over to The Boulevard, Leno orders his chicken parm, eats it, and they drive back up that same road to the CVS at the intersection. He gets what he needs, takes a selfie, and then they continue back on East Pittsburgh street and arrive at the theater so he can do his show.
Or, Leno got mixed up as to when or where he fell and not everyone remembers what happened clearly and he did eat some wings at that sports bar but nobody noticed because, I mean, how big a star is Jay Leno in 2024? And maybe later Leno had chicken parm at that other place for dinner and the manager is confused about the timing.
Now I’m going to put away my maps and red string and stop thinking about this. Enjoy your Friday and the rest of the weekend. And be careful walking down hills.
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