{"id":373601,"date":"2025-11-12T11:10:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-12T11:10:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/373601\/"},"modified":"2025-11-12T11:10:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T11:10:13","slug":"jimmy-kimmel-breaks-down-in-tears-paying-tribute-to-childhood-friend-bandleader-cleto-escobedo-after-his-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/373601\/","title":{"rendered":"Jimmy Kimmel breaks down in tears paying tribute to childhood friend, bandleader Cleto Escobedo after his death"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jimmy Kimmel paid homage to his late best friend and \u201cJimmy Kimmel Live!\u201d band leader, Cleto Escobedo III<\/a>, during the \u201chardest\u201d opening monologue the late-night host said he ever had to deliver.<\/p>\n

Kimmel broke down in tears on Tuesday night\u2019s show<\/a> as he shared intimate details about his \u201cgreat friend, father, son, musician and man\u201d Escobedo, who died earlier that morning at age 59.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been on the air for almost 23 years and I\u2019ve had to do some hard monologues along the way, but this one\u2019s the hardest because late last night, early this morning, we lost someone very special who was much too young,\u201d\u00a0the 57-year-old late-night host told his audience.<\/p>\n

Jimmy Kimmel broke down in tears while talking about his best friend and \u201cJimmy Kimmel Live!\u201d band leader, Cleto Escobedo III, following his death on Tuesday morning. Jimmy Kimmel Live<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 1997, my family moved to Las Vegas. My parents sold our house in Brooklyn, and we moved 3,000 miles across the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kimmel said he met Escobedo when he and his family left Brooklyn and moved 3,000 miles west to Las Vegas. Escobedo lived just a few houses down from where Kimmel moved to in Spring Valley.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was a year older than me. His name was Cleto, but we called him Junior,\u201d he said, adding that they first met while he was riding his bike around the neighborhood.<\/p>\n

The two instantly became best friends from there on and would regularly have sleepovers at each other\u2019s homes, Kimmel said, noting that at one point he slept over Escobedo\u2019s home \u201c33 nights in a row.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kimmel said one thing he\u2019ll never forget about Escobedo was that he \u201cwas a phenomenal sax player from a very young age.\u201d<\/p>\n

A young Cleto Escobedo III and Jimmy Kimmel during their childhood. Jimmy Kimmel Live<\/p>\n

Cleto Escobedo III of \u201cCleto and the Cletones\u201d performs at Kevin And Bean\u2019s 2011 April Foolishness at Gibson Amphitheatre on April 2, 2011, in Universal City, California. WireImage<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was a child prodigy who would get standing ovations in junior high school if you could believe that,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Escobedo gained his love for music from his sax-playing father Cleto Escobedo II \u2014 who is also a part of the show\u2019s in-house band, \u201cCleto and the Cletones\u201d \u2014 but gave up his career as a musician to focus on his family when he was younger.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo when Cleto Jr. became a professional musician, Cleto Senior was thrilled. He got to live vicariously through his son, who started playing in bars, and clubs, and lounges around Las Vegas,\u201d Kimmel said.<\/p>\n

Escobedo was eventually hired to play sax for pop star Paula Abdul and was later signed to a record deal, under which he released his first album.<\/p>\n

Kimmel said that he and Escobedo were such great friends growing up that at one point, he slept over Escobedo\u2019s home \u201c33 nights in a row.\u201d Jimmy Kimmel Live<\/p>\n

Kimmel said the album didn\u2019t succeed because Escobedo, a \u201cserious musician\u201d with a passion for jazz and R&B, wasn\u2019t cut out for pop stardom and soon returned to touring with Marc Anthony, Philip Bailey, and other artists.<\/p>\n

In 2002, Kimmel landed his talk show and was told he needed a band. <\/p>\n

He said he knew he wanted his childhood best pal to be its leader and also wanted Escobedo\u2019s father to be part of the group, despite him not having played professionally for nearly three decades.<\/p>\n

Escobedo had been the band leader for Kimmel\u2019s show for the last 23 years. Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you do a show like this, you need a few things,\u201d Kimmel said. \u201cYou need a desk, an announcer, a Guillermo, and you need a band. Of course, I wanted Cleto to lead my band. We grew up watching Dave (Letterman) and Paul (Shaffer) and the idea that anyone other than him would lead the band was terrifying. It had to be him.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the talented father-and-son duo and their talented band nailed an audition that Kimmel set up with ABC bigwigs at a restaurant gig, executive Lloyd Braun \u201cloved it,\u201d and \u201cCleto and the Cletones\u201d was born \u2014 with the late-night host noting that since then, they have all been \u201cworking together every day for almost 23 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve often said that the single best thing about doing this show was getting the opportunity to allow Cleto Senior to pick up where he left off in 1966 and become a musician again with his son,\u201d Kimmel said, fighting back tears as the crowd gave Escobedo\u2019s father a standing ovation.<\/p>\n

Escobedo inherited his love of music from his sax-playing father, Cleto Escobedo II \u2014 now part of \u201cJimmy Kimmel Live\u2019s\u201d band, \u201cCleto and the Cletones\u201d \u2014 who once gave up performing to focus on family. Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Kimmel also introduced Escobedo\u2019s mother, who was in the crowd for Tuesday night\u2019s show. <\/p>\n

\u201c[Cleto] Senior and Sylvia, Cleto\u2019s mom, have been like second parents to me,\u201d he said, struggling to keep his composure. <\/p>\n

The late-night host then emotionally vented about the pain he felt from losing his closest friend.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone loves Cleto. Everyone here at the show. We are devastated by this. It\u2019s not\u2026 It\u2019s just not fair,\u201d a choked-up Kimmel said. \u201cEven though I\u2019m heartbroken to lose him, I\u2019m going to take yet another lesson from him and acknowledge how lucky I was to have him literally at my side for so many years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kimmel announced Escobedo\u2019s death on Tuesday morning in an Instagram post. <\/p>\n

A cause of death was not announced, but\u00a0Page Six reports<\/a>\u00a0that he had complications stemming from a liver transplant.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jimmy Kimmel paid homage to his late best friend and \u201cJimmy Kimmel Live!\u201d band leader, Cleto Escobedo III,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":373602,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[1899,171,11171,50812,179798,6003,173,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-373601","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-celebrity-deaths","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-jimmy-kimmel","11":"tag-jimmy-kimmel-live","12":"tag-monologues","13":"tag-tragedy","14":"tag-tv","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=373601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373601\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/373602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=373601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=373601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=373601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}