Cleto Escobedo III’s cause of death has been revealed.
Jimmy Kimmel announced the death of his childhood best friend and his show’s bandleader in an emotional tribute on Instagram Tuesday. The news came after Escobedo, 59, was quietly absent from Jimmy Kimmel Live! for months.
Now, Escodebo's death certificate, obtained by TMZ Friday, has listed his immediate cause of death as cardiogenic shock. Vasodilatory shock, disseminated intravascular coagulation, and alcoholic cirrhosis of the liver were also listed as the underlying causes of his death.
Cardiogenic shock happens “when the heart suddenly can't pump enough blood to meet the body's needs” and is “often caused by a large or severe heart attack,” according to the Mayo Clinic.
Other conditions that contributed to Escobedo, according to the death certificate, were sepsis, graft versus host disease, immunosuppressed, chronic kidney disease, and pneumonia.
Kimmel confirmed Escobedo died on November 11 in an Instagram post.
“Early this morning, we lost a great friend, father, son, musician and man, my longtime bandleader Cleto Escobedo III,” he wrote. “To say that we are heartbroken is an understatement. Cleto and I have been inseparable since I was nine years old. The fact that we got to work together every day is a dream neither of us could ever have imagined would come true.”
“Cherish your friends and please keep Cleto’s wife, children and parents in your prayers,” Kimmel concluded.
During a taping of his show on Tuesday, Kimmel announced that he and his team were taking the next “couple of nights off” after Escobedo’s death. It’s unclear when Jimmy Kimmel Live! will return.
“I've had to do some hard monologues along the way, but this will this one's the hardest because late last night, early this morning, we lost someone very special who was much too young to go,” Kimmel said during the opening monologue.
He also acknowledged that he and Escobedo worked together on his show every day for almost 23 years.
“He was proud of me. He loved me. He loved seeing all of this happen, being a part of it. He never took it for granted,” the comedian added.
The musician fronted Cleto and the Cletones on the late-night talk show since its premiere in 2003. His dad, Cleto Escobedo Jr., is also a member of the band and plays tenor and alto saxophones on the show, which is taped in Los Angeles.
Before his late-night gig, Escobedo was known for touring with Paula Abdul, Marc Anthony, and Earth, Wind and Fire. After Kimmel and Escobedo became friends while growing up across the street from each other in their hometown of Las Vegas, the pair remained close throughout college and their young adult years.
In 2015, Kimmel told ABC that he convinced the president of the network that Escobedo had to be his band leader after he took the exec to see the musician’s band perform.
“Of course I wanted great musicians, but I wanted somebody I had chemistry with,” he said at the time. “And there's nobody in my life I have better chemistry with than him.”
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