Billy Crystal Tears a Rib Muscle After "Violent" Sneeze

Comedian could not breathe after he tore this

By Samantha Schnurr Jul 18, 2017 1:00 PMTags
Billy CrystalFrederick M. Brown/Getty Images

Billy Crystal had the wind knocked out of him. 

The longtime comedian appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live Monday night, but according to the host, the visit was long overdue. Crystal was scheduled to drop by the set last month, but had to cancel after suffering what the star called the "weirdest injury ever."

As the Comedians star described to the audience, he was dozing off in a chair when he suddenly experienced 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," the animated star continued. Crystal fell back asleep, but woke up about two hours later because he couldn't breathe. Turns out he had torn a rib muscle. 

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"It's not an injury you want to brag about, " he quipped. "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." 

Moral of his story? Sneeze with caution. 

In Crystal's defense, he suffers from allergies, including one to different kinds of chocolate. "I once sneezed 58 times before my nose started bleeding," he recalled to Kimmel. He even turned his malady into a profitable talent in college when his roommate advertised his hidden ability to their dorm neighbors and started bidding. 

"Finally we get to 63 sneezes...and I made $250," Crystal noted. He was later asked by a fraternity member if he could come sneeze at one of their events. The rest, as they say, is history.