Larry King, the radio, television, and podcast host who anchored CNN’s Larry King Live for 15 years, has been hospitalized with COVID-19, according to reports.
King, 87, has been at Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles for over a week. Isolation protocols at the hospital have prevented his sons from visiting him.
The longtime interviewer has had a host of medical issues recently. He underwent surgery for lung cancer in 2017, and had a procedure in 2019 for angina. In 1987 he had quintuple bypass surgery. He is also a diabetic. In 2020, his son Andy and daughter Chaia both passed away within weeks of one another. They were 65 and 51 respectively.
The Brooklyn-born King began his career on radio in Miami in the late 1950s. Known for his blocky glasses, suspenders, and leaning over the table to converse with celebrities and politicians, there are few notables in public life who did not, at some point, cross his path.
In 2012 he co-founded his own production shingle, Ora TV, which broadcasts his Larry King Now program, which is also found on Hulu and RT. In the last decade King also discovered Twitter. His @kingsthings account is a blend of sagacity and non sequitur made even greater when one learns that his delivery system for espousing observations is to open a flip phone, dial a dedicated number, and leave a recorded message for a staffer.
King has been married eight times (twice to the same woman) and divorced his most recent wife, Shawn Southwick King, in 2019. The pair have two sons, Chance and Cannon, ages 21 and 20. His first son, Larry King Jr. was born in 1961.
After his quintuple bypass, King founded the Larry King Cardiac Foundation in 1988. The organization helps patients with limited or no insurance get lifesaving heart surgeries. In true @kingsthings fashion, the group’s website also features a page dedicated to “Affordable Korean Skin Care Hacks.”
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