Jimmy Kimmel has thanked the doctors and nurses who saved his son Billy’s life in a post celebrating his fifth birthday.
“Happy 5th birthday to our little nut,” Kimmel wrote. “We are eternally grateful to the brilliant doctors and nurses at @ChildrensLA & @CedarsSinai for saving Billy’s life and to those of you whose donations, prayers and positive thoughts meant everything. Please support families who need medical care.”
Kimmel and his wife Molly McNearney’s son William John Kimmel, nicknamed Billy, was born with a heart defect in 2017 and had to undergo open-heart surgery at just three days old.
In an emotional opening monologue at the time, Kimmel told the audience of his chat show, Jimmy Kimmel Live!: “It was the longest three hours of my life, but it was a success.” The host said a sonogram revealed his son was born with a hole in the wall separating the two sides of his heart.
Seven months later, in December 2017, Kimmel introduced Billy on his show after the youngster had successfully undergone his second heart surgery.
Kimmel thanked the doctors and nurses at Children’s Hospital, not just for treating Billy but for helping “children from every income level, whose health is especially threatened right now, because of something you’ve probably never heard of”.
He went on to explain that the Children’s Health Insurance Program “covers around 9 million American kids whose parents made too much money to qualify for Medicaid, but don’t have access to affordable coverage due to their jobs, meaning it almost certainly covers children you know”.
