Larry King has reportedly spent the last week in Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles battling Covid-19. Neither the talk show legend himself nor his family has offered any update on his condition, but there has been an outpouring of support since news of his hospitalization first circulated. The 87-year-old has had several major health scares over the past few years including lung cancer and a surgery to address angina.
His Covid-19 diagnosis and subsequent hospitalization were first reported by CNN. The cable news network cites a source close to the family, but no one involved has spoken on the record as of yet. The network says because of Cedars Sinai Medical Center Covid rules, his sons have been unable to visit him since he was admitted.
King’s flagship program Larry King Live ran on CNN for 25 years between 1985 and 2010. During that time, he recorded 6,120 episodes and interviewed a truly wide range of people from preachers to psychics to world leaders. He interviewed Presidents Donald Trump, Barack Obama, George W Bush, Bill Clinton, George HW Bush, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford. He also sat down with thousands of other major celebrities including Vladimir Putin, Oprah Winfrey, LeBron James, Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan and Tom Cruise.
Throughout his career, King held a wide variety of different media jobs. He started as a disc jockey and achieved some notoriety by interviewing ordinary people live at a restaurant. He later started mixing in celebrity guests. That led to a job at a local TV station where he bonded with entertainment legend Jackie Gleason and started doing more celebrity interviews. In the early 1970s, he transitioned into calling Miami Dolphins football games and had a local sports radio show. In the late 1970s, he went national with a radio show and eventually joined CNN in 1985 with Larry King Live, where he stayed until 2010. Afterwards, he launched another talk show called Larry King Now that was available on Hulu and ran until earlier this year. Notably, it produced this wonderful clip of Bryan Cranston explaining the Power Rangers. He also still hosts a weekly podcast called Politicking With Larry King
Over the last several decades, King has dealt with and overcome several major health issues. He had major heart surgery in 1987 after a heart attack. He had successful surgery to treat lung cancer back in 2017 and in 2019, he had an angioplasty and later suffered a stroke. He’s always continued to work through it all however and has always addressed it all with positivity and humor.
It’s unclear if King or his family will issue any comment about this reported Covid diagnosis. Our thoughts go out to his family and everyone who cares about the veteran newsman. He’s a legend and has earned every positive word said about him since this news first broke.
