Larry King, who was an icon in the world of TV interviews, had many tragedies later on in his life.
From family deaths to having quite a severe stroke, Larry King dealt with a lot in the last few years of his life. The legendary TV presenter became a household name in the mid-80s when he began hosting The Larry King Show. The series ran for 25 years and in that time, he interviewed an array of celebrities, including Marlon Brando, Oprah Winfrey, and Elizabeth Taylor. But behind all the glitz and glamor, the host didn’t have an easy time.
Larry’s children died within weeks of one another
In July 2020, the 87-year-old’s son Andy died suddenly at the age of 65 from a heart attack. Larry adopted his son after he married his mother, Alene Atkins. The couple married — and divorced — twice, and later welcomed their daughter, Chaia, in 1969 after they remarried.
Chaia died not long after Andy at the age of 51 from lung cancer.
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A source told Page Six Larry continued working as it was “his way of processing”. Another said: “Larry and his three remaining children are distraught, and Larry’s still recovering from his own health issues from last year.”
Some time after the loss of his children, Larry spoke out about the tragedies. In a Facebook post, he thanked fans for their support.
He said: “It is with sadness and a father’s broken heart that I confirm the recent loss of two of my children, Andy King, and Chaia King. Both of them were good and kind souls, and they will be greatly missed.
“Losing them feels so out of order. No parent should have to bury a child.
“My family and I thank you for your outpouring of kind sentiments and well wishes. In this moment, we need a little time and privacy to heal. I thank you for respecting that.”
A near-fatal stroke
In 2019, the interviewer suffered a stroke, which led the doctors to tell his family that they didn’t think he would live.
Recalling what he could remember of the incident, which is very little, he explained to People: “I was driving to the doctor’s office, and I don’t remember anything after that. I woke up in intensive care and I had tubes in me. They told my family I was going to die.”
He continued, saying when he woke up in the ICU, he told his son Chance, 20: “I want to die.” “When I came out of [the stroke] and learned what had happened, I had an instant thought and I said to my son, ‘I want to die,’ But that was a passing thing. I never had that thought again, or before. And Chance kept me going. He said, ‘You can’t go, you’re not going to go,’ and so I came home.”
As a consequence of the stroke, he had drop foot, a weakness in his left foot and used a wheelchair. When talking about it, he said he went to rehab to help heal three to four days a week.
“I get mad. When I have to be helped into a chair it’s like, ‘Come on.’ But I try to rely on my sense of humor. I think you live longer if you laugh a lot,” he said.
A secret disease
Larry had lung cancer in 2017 but kept his diagnosis a secret. Thankfully, he beat it.
He said that his doctor told him that he was “lucky” and had they not caught it then, when it was in its beginning stages, Larry would have been “in trouble.”
He told Us Weekly: “They say, ‘Let’s do a chest X-ray, and the doctor said to me, ‘Something looks funny.’ They said the spot looked pretty small. … I then did a CAT scan then a PET scan and then he said to me, ‘You have lung cancer, but it looks very small, in the beginning stages.’
“The doctor said to me, ‘It was malignant, but you were in the first stage. If it had stayed and we didn’t find it, you would have had trouble in two or three years, but we got it and you were lucky,’”
After two weeks of recovery from the surgery to remove the cancer, he was given the all-clear.
“They showed me my latest chest X-ray, which is all clear,” he says. “It was fun to see where that spot was and there is no spot now. They took off 20 percent of the lung.”
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If you are affected by any issues raised in the article or would like someone to speak to, please call the Samaritans for free on 116 123. You can also email them at [email protected] or visit samaritans.org to find your nearest branch in the UK. In the US, please visit Samaritans USA for more information.
You can also contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-TALK (8255) or text 741741 to get in touch with the Crisis Text Line. Americans can now call or text 988 to reach out and speak to a counselor.
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