Jimmy Kimmel and his son Billy after he underwent his third open heart surgery. Photo:
Jon Kopaloff/Getty; Jimmy Kimmel/Instagram
Jimmy Kimmel is speaking out about his son Billy’s health.
In an interview with Entertainment Tonight, published Monday, July 8, the Jimmy Kimmel Live! host, 56, opened up about how his 7-year-old son William “Billy” John was doing following his third open heart surgery in May.
“Billy’s doing great. He had open-heart surgery; you know he’s got the scars and everything, but he’s just mentally right back where he was which is crazy,” Kimmel told the outlet of his son, who was born in 2017 with a congenital heart disease.
“Physically, you know, we’re gonna have to be careful with him for a couple of months, but he’s doing really well,” he continued.
Opening up about the resilience of children, Kimmel added, “They’re made of rubber, you know, everybody says that kids are so resilient and the doctors actually explained it to me which I don’t know why it never occurred to me before because they’re still growing.”
In May, Kimmel — who shares Billy and daughter Jane, 9, with wife Molly McNearney, as well as daughter Katie, 32, and son Kevin, 30, with his first wife Gina Maddy — posted a snap of Billy smiling in a hospital bed.
He then revealed in the caption that Billy had successfully undergone his third open heart surgery.
“This weekend, our boy Billy had his third (of three, we hope) open heart surgery,” he wrote at the time, calling it a “humbling experience.”
“We went into this experience with a lot of optimism and nearly as much fear and came out with a new valve inside a happy, healthy kid,” Kimmel continued, before thanking medical staff, strangers, family and friends.
The father of four added, “Thank you to my wife Molly for being stronger than is reasonable for any Mom to be and Billy, you are the toughest (and funniest) 7 year-old we know.”
