Jay Leno Says He Injured Face in Nasty Fall, Wears Eye Patch

Jay Leno‘s such a badass, he did a comedy gig with an eye patch, a black eye, a bandaged wrist and a swollen face … after taking a nasty fall near his hotel.

We got Jay arriving to the Comedy for Koby event in Beverly Hills on Monday night and our photog asked him the obvious … what the hell happened to his face?!?

Jay tells us he was staying at a hotel on a hill and wanted to go to a restaurant at the bottom of the slope … and instead of taking a winding path down, he tried to take a shortcut … and it ended with him tumbling down the hill.

As you can see, the left side of Jay’s face is super swollen and bruised … and he’s got an eye patch and a wrist wrap … but he says the incident didn’t stop him from performing over the weekend at the Yaamava’ Casino in Southern California.

Jay says there were a couple thousand people waiting for him to take the stage and he just couldn’t let them down … waiting until after his gig to go to a hospital.

The comedy legend has taken a beating in recent years … shattering bones in a motorcycle crash and suffering third-degree burns in a car fire in his famous garage.