{"id":2151627,"date":"2025-11-12T14:30:05","date_gmt":"2025-11-12T14:30:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2151627"},"modified":"2025-11-12T14:30:05","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T14:30:05","slug":"jimmy-kimmel-live-taking-week-off-after-tragedy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/jimmy-kimmel-live-taking-week-off-after-tragedy\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Jimmy Kimmel Live&#8217; Taking Week Off After Tragedy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p><em>Jimmy Kimmel Live! <\/em>will take the rest of the week off as the late-night host mourns the <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/popculture.com\/tv-shows\/news\/jimmy-kimmel-announces-sudden-death-of-live-bandleader-cleto-escobedo-iii\/\">death of his friend and bandleader<\/a>, Cleto Escobedo III.<\/p>\n<p>Following Escobedo\u2019s death at age 59 on Tuesday, Kimmel <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/popculture.com\/tv-shows\/news\/popular-singers-performance-canceled-on-jimmy-kimmel-live-at-last-minute\/\">will reschedule guests<\/a> Danny DeVito, Howard Jones, Debbie Gibson, Jason Bateman, Mr. T, and Susanna Hoffs for his return. <\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-instagram wp-block-embed-instagram\"\/>\n<p>News of the pause comes after Kimmel gave an emotional monologue dedicated to his childhood best friend at the top of Tuesday\u2019s show.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve been on the air for almost 23 years, and I\u2019ve had to do some hard monologues along the way, but this one\u2019s the hardest because late last night, early this morning, we lost someone very special who was much too young,\u201d Kimmel said through tears.<\/p>\n<p>Kimmel recalled becoming friends with Escobedo at just 9 years old after moving to Las Vegas.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne summer, I slept over at the Escobedo house 33 nights in a row. For real,\u201d Kimmel recalled. \u201cMy mother used to make me get down on my knees and beg to sleep at his house in front of him. And I would gladly do it, cause we were never bored. We were always up to something.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When Kimmel was hired at <em>Jimmy Kimmel Live!<\/em>, he made sure to bring his friend \u2014 and his friend\u2019s father \u2014 on in his band. \u201cI knew, \u2018My best friend from growing up plays the saxophone. He could lead the band,\u2019 wasn\u2019t a great pitch,\u201d Kimmel recalled. \u201cBut it had to happen. And, not only did I want Cleto to lead the band, I wanted his dad to be in the band.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-savage-platform-youtube-placeholder\" data-component=\"youtube-placeholder\">\n\t\t<button type=\"button\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Play video<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<svg aria-hidden=\"true\" focusable=\"false\" width=\"72\" height=\"50.76\"><use href=\"#am-symbol-youtube-play-dark\"\/><\/svg>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<picture><source srcset=\"https:\/\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/0xlVAr6JZ9A\/maxresdefault.jpg\" media=\"(min-width: 480px)\"\/>\n\t\t\t<\/picture>\n\t\t<\/button><\/p>\n<p>\t\t<template><\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<div class=\"jeg_video_container jeg_video_content\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Jimmy Kimmel Remembers His Best Friend and Bandleader Cleto Escobedo III\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/0xlVAr6JZ9A?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>\t\t<\/template><\/p>\n<p>\t\t<noscript><\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<div class=\"jeg_video_container jeg_video_content\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Jimmy Kimmel Remembers His Best Friend and Bandleader Cleto Escobedo III\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/0xlVAr6JZ9A?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>\t\t<\/noscript>\n\t<\/div>\n<p>Looking back on his time with Escobedo, Kimmel went on, \u201cWe had so many adventures. We would laugh so hard. We had our own language that almost no one else understood. We didn\u2019t have to say anything. We\u2019d sit here at rehearsal every day. We didn\u2019t have to look at each other.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEveryone loves Cleto\u2026 everyone here at the show,\u201d Kimmel added of his late friend. \u201cWe are devastated by this. It\u2019s not\u2026 It\u2019s just not fair.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCherish your friends. We\u2019re not here forever,\u201d Kimmel concluded, before revealing that he and the show would be taking \u201cthe next couple of nights off\u201d to grieve.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source popculture.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jimmy Kimmel Live! will take the rest of the week off as the late-night host mourns the death of his friend and bandleader, Cleto Escobedo III. Following Escobedo\u2019s death at age 59 on Tuesday, Kimmel will reschedule guests Danny DeVito, Howard Jones, Debbie Gibson, Jason Bateman, Mr. T, and Susanna Hoffs for his return. News [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2151628,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25177],"tags":[23060,345661],"class_list":["post-2151627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celebrities","tag-jimmy-kimmel","tag-jimmy-kimmel-live"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Jimmy-Kimmel-Live-Taking-Week-Off-After-Tragedy.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2151627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2151627"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2151627\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2151629,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2151627\/revisions\/2151629"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2151628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2151627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2151627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2151627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}