‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ band leader Cleto Escobedo’s cause of death revealed
Jimmy Kimmel’s lifelong friend and the band leader of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Cleto Escobedo III, passed away on Tuesday, November 11, at just 59 years old. Condolences poured in for Kimmel throughout the week, and Escobedo’s cause of death has now been revealed.
Kimmel came out on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on November 11 in tears, starting with a special tribute to Escobedo, which he called the “hardest” he’s had to give in his career.
In his monologue, Kimmel remembered Escobedo and their childhood—when they became “not just regular friends,” but “the 24/7, ‘Mom please let me sleep over, please,’” kind of friends. He recalled one summer that he slept over at the Escobedo house 33 nights in a row.
He also reminisced about their afternoons of whiffle ball on the front lawn and Nerf football in the street, as well as their nights staying up making prank phone calls and ordering pizzas to their neighbors’ houses.
“We are devastated by [the news of his death],” Kimmel carried on. “It’s just not fair. He was the nicest, most humble, kind, and always funny person.”
Kimmel also shared his heartbreak on Instagram following the news of his “great friend” and “longtime band leader.”
“To say that we are heartbroken is an understatement,” he wrote. “Cleto and I have been inseparable since I was nine years old. The fact that we got to work together every day is a dream neither of us could ever have imagined would come true.”
Kimmel and Escobedo worked together every day for almost 23 years up until this point.
According to Escobedo’s death certificate, which was reportedly obtained by TMZ and states that Escobedo was cremated, his immediate cause of death was cardiogenic shock.
The listed underlying causes included vasodilatory shock, disseminated intravascular coagulation, and alcoholic cirrhosis of the liver. Contributing conditions included immunosuppressed, chronic kidney disease, graft versus host disease, sepsis, and pneumonia.
Escobedo called his time on Jimmy Kimmel Live! the “best gig ever,” during an ABC Hispanic Latinx Heritage Month feature in 2021.
With his passing, Kimmel has shared two fundraisers to celebrate the musician’s life: the UCLA Medical Center, where Kimmel says Escobedo “received such incredible care,” and The Animal Foundation in their hometown of Las Vegas to “honor his love of animals.”
