Jay Leno joked he’s got a “brand new face” during an appearance on “The Kelly Clarkson Show” Wednesday.
The former “Tonight Show” host endured a horrific car fire accident on Nov. 12 that left him with third-degree burns on his face, chest, and hands.
The 72-year-old was met with loud applause from the audience as he sat down to chat with the “Since U Been Gone” singer about his injuries.
“You look great though,” Clarkson told Leno, to which he replied, “This is a brand-new face.”
“It is, it’s unbelievable,” Leno continued. “What happened, I was working on a car and I got a full face of gasoline and it caught fire. And I had been eating a flaming hot Dorito and when I bit into it, it set my face on,” he quipped.
“It was interesting. It was all third-degree burns, it was pretty bad. It was pretty bad.”
“You can’t tell at all,” Clarkson chimed in.
“No, you think there’d be a zipper here or something,” he joked. “No, this is like a brand-new face.”
“Only for the second time in my career am I the new face of comedy,” he added.
In December, the funnyman and car fanatic revealed what caused the fiery explosion in his garage.
“It was a 1907 White Steam Car. The fuel line was clogged, so I was underneath it,” he said of working on the vintage car — alongside close friend David Killackey — during a talk with “Today” anchor Hoda Kotb. “It sounded clogged and I said, ‘Blow some air through the line,’ and so he did.”
Leno said the fuel line made a noise, “and suddenly, boom, I got a face full of gas. And then the pilot light jumped and my face caught on fire.”
Luckily, Leno said Killackey acted fast.
“I said to my friend, I said, ‘Dave, I’m on fire.’ And Dave’s like, ‘All right.’ I said, ‘No, Dave, I’m on fire.’ And then, ‘Oh, my God.’ Dave, my friend, pulled me out and jumped on top of me and kind of smothered the fire,” he recalled.
Leno was taken to Grossman Burn Center in Los Angeles, where he was treated for third-degree burns during a 10-day stay. Leno also received skin grafts and another surgical procedure.
His recovery was made worse just weeks after the ordeal when he broke multiple bones in a freak motorcycle accident.
Leno revealed details of the second accident after the Las Vegas Review-Journal questioned him about the car fire.
“That was the first accident, OK?” he said last month. “Then just last week, I got knocked off my motorcycle. So I’ve got a broken collarbone. I’ve got two broken ribs. I’ve got two cracked kneecaps.”
During his appearance, Leno and Clarkson gifted the three nurses who treated the talk show host with a three-night vacation to the Bahamas.
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