‘Hacks’ Star Jean Smart Reveals Horrible Injury She Suffered in New York

Jean Smart recently suffered a nasty injury.

The Hacks star revealed on Late Night with Seth Meyers that she broke her knee in July.

Smart, who is doing her one-woman Broadway show, Call Me Izzy, shared with the former SNL star that during Fourth of July, she went to get a cute outfit for the holiday at Macy’s, “and I was outside, I was trying to hail a cab, I saw one and I went, ‘Oh! Ah!’ and I tripped over something, you know, and yeah, I broke my kneecap in half.”

She continued to explain that on the 8^th of July, doctors “screwed it back together.” Meyers wondered what it felt like in that moment when she fell, and Smart was just hoping no one was passing by and taking pictures. “I was with my sons, but as I’m sitting on the street waiting for the ambulance, a guy tripped over the same thing,” she said. “And when I went to the emergency hospital, I mentioned to the nurse that said, ‘What did you trip over?’ And I kind of described what it was, and she said, ‘Oh, I know exactly what you’re talking about! Because we get one a day.’”

As for her Broadway show, Smart was happy that she doesn’t do any tap numbers, “so the audience doesn’t seem to mind that I mostly sit.” She continued, “But I had a leg brace on, from my ankle to [upper thigh] until about two days ago, so in the dark they kinda just prop me on a chair with my leg up, but no one seems to mind.”

Smart said she just got it off and she’s “slowly but surely” trying to bend her knee more. She also had to have crutches and a cane, noting how differently people look at her. On crutches, people were wanting to know what happened, whereas with a cane, they spoke to her like she was an old lady with bad hearing. The Emmy winner seems to be doing alright, though, and is making jokes about what happened, which is further proof that she’s hanging in there. And she’s still able to perform her Broadway show, even if she does have to make some adjustments.

Meanwhile, with Hacks nabbing a Season 5 renewal in May, it’s unknown if this injury will interfere with filming. A production start date hasn’t been confirmed yet for the new season, but it is expected to kick off this fall, co-creator and co-showrunner Paul W. Downs told Deadline, giving Smart a little bit longer to recover before she steps back into Deborah Vance’s shoes.