The Kelly Clarkson Show: Jay Leno debuts ‘brand new face’ after car blaze

"You have to joke about it. There's nothing worse than whiny celebrities. If you joke about it, people laugh along with you!" Photo / Instagram

Jay Leno has a “brand new face”.

The 72-year-old TV host - who is also an avid car collector - underwent skin graft surgery just days after he suffered major burns when one of his vehicles burst into flames in November last year and has now joked that he is the “new face in comedy” for the second time in his career.

Speaking on The Kelly Clarkson Show, he said: “This is a brand new face, it’s unbelievable. What happened was I was working on a car and I got a face full of gasoline and it set caught fire. I’d been eating a Flamin’ Hot Dorito and when I bit into it, it set my face on fire!

“No no, but, it was interesting, it was all third-degrees so it was pretty bad. It was pretty bad. You’d think I would have a zipper [on my face] now, but no. Only for the second time in my career am I the new face of comedy! I got it once in the 1980s, and now I get it again! That’s a brand new ear, too!”

The former Tonight star previously joked that his new face was “better” than the old one as he insisted that the whole ordeal was an accident and he had already accepted the “risk factor” when he decided to work with cars in the first place.

He said: “Eight days later, I had a brand new face. And it’s better than what was there before. It was an accident, that’s all. Anybody who works with their hands on a regular basis is going to have an accident at some point. If you play football, you get a concussion or a broken leg. Anything you do, there’s a risk factor.

“You have to joke about it. There’s nothing worse than whiny celebrities. If you joke about it, people laugh along with you!”