Jimmy Kimmel’s youngest child was born fighting for his life. The Hollywood star revealed how he and his longtime wife felt upon learning that their son was born with a disease.
TV host Jimmy Kimmel is married to screenwriter Molly McNearney, whom he met at work. She went down memory lane in a February 2014 interview, relating how they went from co-workers to life partners.
While Jimmy works as the host of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” Molly is the co-head writer of the show. When Molly gave the interview, she confessed that they had known each other longer in a professional sense than in a personal one.
Molly shared her first impression of Jimmy during the interview and revealed the first time they met, he “insulted” her. At the time, she and her executive producer had walked into his office to introduce her as the new assistant writer. Molly recalled:
“Jimmy barely looked up from his desk until my EP said, ‘She competes in triathlons,’ and then Jimmy looked up at me and said, ‘That is really stupid! What a waste of time.'”
When asked whether she ever would have imagined being his wife then, Molly said it never crossed her mind because she never thought of him romantically. Moreover, they were both in relationships at the time.
Asked when the romance began between them, the Missouri native explained it was around 2010. During a get-together with fellow writers after the show, Jimmy asked everyone about their favorite foods. Afterward, he invited Molly to his house, where he made her favorite meal. The pair spent more time together, and things progressed from there.
“We really liked each other as friends, and then it just kind of turned. He cooked for me, and that was it. It sealed the deal,” Molly divulged. She became more impressed by Jimmy after he made her favorite food from scratch and invited her to his home to eat, said Molly, adding:
“[…] I realized how incredibly thoughtful and generous he really was.”
Jimmy proposed to Molly in 2012 when the pair vacationed in South Africa. The lovebirds tied the knot a year later, in July 2013, in Ojai, California.
They reportedly asked guests to make charitable donations instead of giving them wedding gifts. The nuptials were attended by A-list stars, including Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Jennifer Aniston, Emily Blunt, and Howard Stern.
Being comical, just like her then-husband-to-be, Molly asked Gabourey Sidibe to stand in for her and walk down the aisle to surprise Jimmy as he was nervous on their big day. The bride knew the actress’ presence would lighten up the groom.
Molly and Jimmy have been married for ten years now. This is the first marriage for the blonde beauty and the second for the comedian.
Jimmy was first married to costume designer Gina Kimmel from 1988 to 2002, and they welcomed two kids together: a daughter named Katie Kimmel and a son named Kevin Kimmel. Jimmy has two younger children in his second marriage with Molly. The pair are parents to daughter Jane Kimmel and son Billy Kimmel.
The late-night talk show host’s youngest child, Billy, was born in April 2017 at Cedars-Sinai Hospital. The following month, Jimmy disclosed that his boy was born with a life-threatening condition.
According to him, Billy seemed like a healthy baby right after birth. They had moved from the delivery room to the recovery room when a nurse noticed the infant had a murmur in his heart and had turned slightly purple.
Jimmy and the nurse took the baby to the neonatal ICU, where another nurse examined the boy and called the doctor. More medical professionals gatehred in the room and later determined that Billy was not getting enough oxygen into his blood.
They did X-rays and found that nothing was wrong with his lungs, but the problem was his little heart. Jimmy said the ordeal was “terrifying,” as neither he nor his wife had ever imagined the situation would be more worrying than they had realized.
The doctors called a pediatric cardiologist who rushed to the hospital as quickly as he could, and they did an echocardiogram — an ultrasound of the heart. Jimmy said doctors discovered Billy “was born with a heart disease, something called Tetralogy of Fallot with pulmonary atresia.”
He explained it is a defect that involves a pulmonary valve being blocked, and, in this instance, Billy had a hole between the left and the right sides of his heart. That said, Jimmy and Molly were given options on how to help their son, and they took him to a Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles.
At this medical institution, a world-renowned cardiac surgeon operated on one of the two defects in Billy’s heart. “The operation was a success, it was the longest three hours of my life,” the father of four expressed on the show as he got emotional while explaining what had happened to his son.
Jimmy further divulged that Billy would have to have another open-heart surgery in six months to close the holes, adding that doctors wanted him to get bigger first to get a third “hopefully non-invasive procedure.”
During the show, the New York native showed a picture of his beloved boy when he was in the hospital and an up-close shot of him after the surgery, and he was all smiles. The proud parent shared that Billy was doing much better since the procedure.
In an April 2018 interview with Oprah Winfrey, Jimmy recounted the events following his son’s birth. He was asked whether he had done a lot of crying while at the hospital, and he said no.
The showbiz star did not want other family members to be upset seeing him in his vulnerable state. Winfrey stated that they must have been looking to him for signals, and Jimmy explained:
“Well, my wife and I look to each other. There were secrets we kept from each other that we revealed only after the second surgery.”
He said, “subconsciously,” they both did not want to get too attached to their newborn son because they had no idea how things would unfold. Jimmy told Molly how he genuinely felt, and she admitted to feeling the same way, too, but did not want to express it. But she was relieved that he did.
Billy is now six years old, and his famous father revealed that he would have another surgery at six or when he turns seven. Jimmy posted an Instagram photo of his son and his big sister Jane widely smiling in December 2020.
In the post, the writer showed his generous side by urging his followers to donate food and holiday gifts to those in need. “Let’s make sure that every kid gets presents this year,” the producer wrote, adding he and Molly would match those who donate $25 by $25,000.
