Billy Crystal Reveals He Tore a Rib Muscle From Sneezing: 'It's Not An Injury You Want to Brag About'

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The 69-year-old comedian explained how the injury happened during his guest appearance on 'Jimmy Kimmel Live!'

Billy Crystal says he suffered the "weirdest injury ever."

During his guest appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Monday, the 69-year-old comedian revealed he tore his rib muscle as a result of a "violent" sneeze.


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"It's the night before the show, it's around 9:30, which is already past my bedtime. Crystal, who was originally supposed to appear on the show last month, said. "So I'm in that position that a lot of you young people find your parents in around 8:30. I'm in a position, like, only a Cirque du Soleil person or a jellyfish could be in and I'm [dozing off]. And out of the blue I sneezed, but a violent sneeze."

"If it was a cartoon, my arms are flying off my body, my eyes are coming out of my head, people in the room are now naked because it blew their clothes off," he joked. "I literally could not breathe. And it's not an injury you want to brag about. I didn't rescue a woman out of a burning car. I didn't catch an orphan falling out of a burning orphanage… I sneezed."

Crystal continued on, telling host Jimmy Kimmel that he suffers from allergies and used to put his sneezing talents to good use back in college at Marshall University in West Virginia.

"I once sneezed 58 times before my nose started bleeding," he recalled. "My roommate, I'm 17 [at the time], my roommate's 27 – we were talking, trying to get to know each other and so I said, 'Ya know a weird thing, I'm allergic to different kinds of chocolate. I can sneeze more than 50 times.' He said, 'Really? Let's make some money.'"

"So, he puts up signs in the dorm, 'Come see him sneeze,'" Crystal added. "We're in the rack room, he puts a chair in the middle of the room and all these guys from West Virginia, Pennsylvania, mostly athletes come in, $5 in the hat and I'm just sitting there and I eat two big bars of dark chocolate … finally we get to 63 sneezes and I made $250."


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