Earlier this week, Jay Leno was injured after falling down a 60-foot hill outside a hotel in Pennsylvania. Apparently the former Tonight's show The 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 who falls down a dirt road.
On November 19th Inside Edition met the seriously injured and abused Jay Leno in Beverly Hills, California. He told the outlet that while staying at a Hampton Inn outside 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 road on the way down. As a result of his fall, he broke his wrist, lost a fingernail, sustained a large bruise in his left eye and injured much of his face. Three hours later, Leno – now wearing an eye patch – performed his comedy show as planned and went to a hospital after returning to Los Angeles, he says.
In fact, Jay Leno fell down a small but steep hill and injured himself. That much is true. And if that's enough for you, you can stop reading immediately. But I have questions about everything else.
Questions about Jay Leno's case
For starters, Inside Edition reported later that after his fall, Leno arrived at a restaurant near the hotel called The Boulevard and ordered chicken parmesan. The restaurant manager told me Inside Edition that Leno arrived on site for lunch without a reservation, ordered the dish with some garlic bread and then left.
However, The Boulevard restaurant is approximately 220 m from the hotel. That's not it to far away, but Leno told it Inside Edition He didn't have a car back then. (Which is very ironic, considering How many cars does this guy own?.)
Meanwhile, on the hill where Leno fell, there is a sports bar that specializes in selling wings. And according to a Reddit postthat's actually the direction Leno was going when he fell. They suggest that Leno was craving some buffalo wings and took the dirt road carved into the hill by other people taking the same shortcut, didn't realize how steep it was, and fell.
And that makes sense, because in another interview with TMZLeno says someone at the hotel told him there was a good place to eat “at the bottom of this hill.” It sounds like someone is pointing Leno to the sports bar at the bottom of the little hill and not the chicken parmesan restaurant further up the street.
This theory is supported by the fact that after his fall, Leno visited a local CVS and purchased an eye patch, as a worker documented in a selfie. The nearest CVS is just up the street from the sports bar.
And yet there's the small problem that no one at the sports bar can remember Leno coming in and ordering anything that day. Local news site Triblive Reports that the manager who was on shift that day couldn't remember Leno showing up, and no one he asked could remember seeing the comedian eating wings.
So this seems to indicate that The Boulevard's manager was telling the truth and that Leno went down to the store, ate chicken parmesan, and then left again shortly after falling down the hill and injuring himself. But it's also possible that someone is trying to tell a good story so that a major news outlet will highlight the location for free advertising.
What (probably) happened, maybe…
I 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 something to eat at a place below the hotel. He goes out, tries to take a shortcut and falls. Hurt, he probably calls someone (or someone is with him and sees it happening) and they grab a car.
At this point someone points out that the restaurant is actually down the street and not in the parking lot near the hotel. So they go to the boulevard, Leno orders his chicken parmesan, eats it, and they drive back up the same street to the CVS at the intersection. He gets what he needs, takes a selfie, and then they walk back onto East Pittsburgh Street and arrive at the theater so he can do his show.
Or Leno wasn't sure when or where he fell, and not everyone can clearly remember what happened, and he ate some wings at this sports bar but no one noticed, because I mean, How big of a star is Jay Leno in 2024? And maybe Leno had chicken parmesan dinner later at that other place and the manager is confused about the timing.
Now I'm going to put my cards and the red string away and stop thinking about it. Enjoy your Friday and the rest of the weekend. And be careful when going downhill.
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