Tragic Details About Jimmy Kimmel's Life

Jimmy Kimmel was just a kid from Brooklyn looking to make a name for himself when he embarked on a journey that would make him a household name. He moved to Las Vegas with his family when he was just 9 years old, getting his start in the entertainment industry when he landed a job in radio while still in high school. He got his first Hollywood job in 1997, when he appeared on Comedy Central's "Win Ben Stein's Money." He took on a few small roles before landing his current gig as the host of his very own late-night talk show, "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" And while it may seem that Kimmel had an easy time making his way up the fame ladder, things haven't always gone as planned for him.

Over the years, Kimmel has become one of the most successful late night television hosts, with an estimated net worth of $50 million. However, Kimmel might be the first person to tell you that money isn't everything. It can't buy love, it can't cure disease, and it most certainly can't bring a loved one back from the dead. Kimmel's definitely had some challenges in his life, and some of these tragic details have really shaped who he is as a person. 

In the late '80s, Jimmy Kimmel thought he had it made when he found his person. He met Gina Maddy while attending Arizona State University, and he couldn't wait to get married — even if he was only 21 at the time. "I was a kid. We were both very young. My mom was 19 when she got married, so it didn't seem unusual to me. It seemed unusual to all my friends, but not to me," he previously said, according to HuffPost. He and Maddy tied the knot in 1988 and would go on to have two kids together, one in 1991 and another in 1993. However, by 2002, his marriage had fallen apart. According to Kimmel himself, he's a "workaholic," which may have contributed to the downfall of his first marriage. He compares his work ethic to that of his mother's. "She has never watched television sitting down. I've never seen her eat anything. She will cook dinner, put it on the table and then start cleaning the kitchen. Not a moment of relaxation — and I'm exactly the same way," he said, per HuffPost.

Aside from dedicating all of his spare time (and then some) to his craft, there were also reports that Kimmel had an affair with comedian Sarah Silverman. According to Fox News, it was a poorly kept "open" secret. The same year that Kimmel and Maddy ended things, he was romantically linked to Silverman. The two called it quits in 2009.

Some time after his split from Sarah Silverman, Jimmy Kimmel started dating Molly McNearney — a co-head writer on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" By 2013, Kimmel was a married man — for a second time. He and McNearney welcomed daughter, Jane, in 2014 and son, Billy, in 2017. When Billy was just 3 days old, he underwent his first open heart surgery. "He appeared a normal healthy baby," an emotional Kimmel said during his opening monologue of his show. "My wife was in bed relaxing. A very attentive nurse at Cedars-Sinai heard a murmur in his heart and noticed he was a bit purple, which is not common," Kimmel continued, adding, "[Nurses] determined he wasn't getting enough oxygen in his blood, either in his heart or lungs ... It's a terrifying thing, you know, my wife is back in the recovery room, she has no idea what's going on."

Little Billy was born with Tetralogy of Fallot (TOF) with pulmonary atresia. As Kimmel put it, "the pulmonary valve was completely blocked and he has a hole in the wall between the left and right sides of his heart." Billy would go on to have two more open-heart surgeries, his most recent at age 7. In May 2024, Kimmel took to Instagram to share that Billy had a new valve placed in his heart. In another Instagram update in April 2025, Kimmel wished his son a happy eighth birthday and revealed that he's "very healthy and strong."

Jimmy Kimmel found himself at a loss for words after his talk show was suspended by ABC in 2025. The network took action against its late night star following his comments about the killing of controversial commentator Charlie Kirk. Kimmel specifically said that the "MAGA gang" was "desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them" (via the BBC). He also commented on President Donald Trump's decision to lower all U.S. flags to half staff and compared Trump's reaction to the shooting death of Kirk to a 4-year-old mourning "a goldfish." It didn't take very long for Brendan Carr, chair of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), to step in and take action. 

Kimmel's show was removed from ABC and its affiliates. During that time, he feared that he was going to be forced to close that chapter of his life. Six days later, however, Kimmel was permitted to return to his studio. He got emotional while addressing the situation during his opening monologue on the September 23 episode. "It was never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man. I don't think there's anything funny about it," Kimmel said. "I posted a message on Instagram on the day he was killed, sending love to his family and asking for compassion — and I meant it; I still do. Nor was it my intention to blame any specific group for the actions of what — it was obviously a deeply disturbed individual," he added. 

Jimmy Kimmel mourned the loss of one of his best friends, Cleto Escobedo III, who grew up alongside the talk show host in Las Vegas. Escobedo served as the band leader on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" for two decades. When it came time to hire a band for his late night talk show in 2003, Kimmel tapped his bestie. Escobedo was an incredibly talented musician, so the move made complete sense. "We've been on the air for almost 23 years and I've had to do some hard monologues along the way, but this one's the hardest because late last night, early this morning, we lost someone very special who was much too young," a tearful Kimmel said on the November 11, 2025, episode of his show, just hours after Escobedo's death.

Escobedo's cause of death has not been publicly shared at the time of this writing. "Everyone loves Cleto. Everyone here at the show. We are devastated by this. It's not ... It's just not fair," Kimmel said, starting to cry. "Even though I'm heartbroken to lose him, I'm going to take yet another lesson from him and acknowledge how lucky I was to have him literally at my side for so many years." Escobedo was just 59 years old.