Jay Leno on November 19, 2024 in Burbank, California – Credit: MEGA/GC Images)
Jay Leno dismissed tabloid speculation that he has a massive gambling debt to the mob following a series of increasingly bizarre injuries that he suffered in recent years.
In November, Leno was spotted in public with severe bruising to his face and an eye patch after an incident where he fell down while descending a 60-foot hill outside a Hampton Inn hotel in Pennsylvania. Leno also suffered a broken wrist and a lost fingernail following that accident.
More from Rolling Stone
Two years earlier, Leno suffered significant burns to his face after a gas fire, which he blamed on an attempt to declog a fuel line on his 1907 White Steam Car in his garage. Leno had to undergo skin grafting procedures to tend to his face, chest, and hand burns.
The incidents involving the accident-prone Leno led to unfounded rumors that something more nefarious was afoot, which Bill Maher broached to Leno when the former Tonight Show host was a guest on the Club Random podcast.
“It’s a conspiracy theory since you’ve had three accidents that you actually have gambling debts and you’re being beaten up by the mob,” Maher said to Leno.
Leno reasoned, “I love the idea that the mob would drive to Greenberg, Pennsylvania, wait outside the Hampton Inn on a kind of sleety, rainy day to throw me down a hill.”
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 Leno “fell off his motorcycle, wink wink.”
“What happened was, the guy had a rope across his driveway and it cut me,” Leno explained. “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.”
Best of Rolling Stone
Sign up for RollingStone’s Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
