Jay Leno took quite the tumble back in November, falling down a 60-foot hill outside a hotel in Pennsylvania that led to a broken wrist and significant bruising all over his face. Of course, with the internet and tabloids being what they are, speculation ran rampant that it wasn’t a fall that caused Leno’s injuries, but rather the mafia, who came to collect on some gambling debts. Now, the 74-year-old is setting the record straight, saying that’s nothing more than a conspiracy theory.

Appearing on Bill Maher’s Club Random podcast (seen below), Leno was asked if he’d heard about the ridiculous theories surrounding not just his most recent accident, but the 2022 gas fire incident that left him with serious burns. The former host of the Tonight Show (now led by Jimmy Fallon) laughed it all off, saying:

Maher then clarified that, according to the tabloid buzz, the hill-tossing was just a “cover story,” and that “they just beat you like the mob always does.” Maher then pointed to another Leno accident — after the gas fire, and before the hill fall — where he “fell off his motorcycle, wink wink.” The comedian leaned into the joke, adding, “What happened was, the guy had a rope across his driveway and it cut me. I got a new face when my face caught fire, and two months later [the motorcycle accident] tore my face, I had to call my face guy, ‘I need another face.'”

Leno — who’s reportedly worth nearly half a billion dollars and has a massive collection of classic cars — then rubbished the rumors entirely, noting that if he owed the mob money, “I like the idea that they wouldn’t just take one of my cars to pay the gambling debt.”

While stories of the mafia beating down Leno for unpaid gambling debts are just that – stories – he did relay to Maher a tale from early on in his career when he actually encountered the mob while doing stand-up. “I was pretty smart,” he said. “I remember years ago I was at 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.'”

To prove his point, the “mob guy” offered Leno a generous tip in exchange for making him laugh, which he said he refused. “He takes $100, and he puts it in my pocket. 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 OK, 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.”

That being said, while Leno never had any physical encounters with the mob himself, he did mention that he saw them in action when they’d “kick the crap out of comics left and right” for being “wise asses” onstage. So, there you have it. It wasn’t the mafia that got to Leno, it was just his own clumsiness that left him battered and bruised that fateful day in Pennsylvania. At least, that’s what he wants us to think.

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Release Date

May 25, 1992

Main Genre

Talk Show

Cast

Jay Leno
, Kevin Eubanks
, Edd Hall
, John Melendez
, Wally Wingert
, Rickey Minor
, Branford Marsalis Quartet
, Branford Marsalis

Seasons

22