Jimmy Kimmel Shares Son Billy's Health Update 7 Years After Heart Surgery
Jimmy Kimmel offered a major health update to celebrate son Billy’s 7th birthday and thanked medical professionals in the process.
“Billy turns 7 today and is doing great thanks to the doctors, nurses, therapists and staff at @ChildrensLA & @CedarsSinai,” Kimmel, 56, captioned an Instagram post on Sunday, April 21. “Billy is asking friends ‘to give $7 because I’m seven to help kids in the hospital.’ (he also wants a spy kit) His goal is ‘to raise $100 to help sick kids.’ If you’d like to donate – thank you and link in bio.”
The photos accompanying his birthday message showed Billy with what appeared to be his foot in Kimmel’s camera. A second image showed the talk show host’s youngest child wearing a Los Angeles Lakers jersey and holding a basketball while smiling.
Kimmel has detailed his son’s health struggles since wife Molly McNearney gave birth to Billy in April 2017. Kimmel returned to Jimmy Kimmel Live! the following month with an emotional monologue revealing that Billy had been born with a rare congenital heart defect.
Billy’s official diagnosis was “tetralogy of fallot with pulmonary atresia,” which means his pulmonary valve was blocked and there was a hole in his heart. Three hours after Billy was born, he started to turn purple and doctors noticed he had a heart murmur.
“Dr. Vaughn Starnes opened his chest and fixed one of the two defects in his heart. He went in there with a scalpel and did some kind of magic that I couldn’t even begin to explain,” Kimmel said at the time. “He opened the valve, and the operation was a success. It was the longest three hours of my life.”
Kimmel and McNearney, 46, also share daughter, Jane, 9. Additionally, the television host shares daughter Katie, 32, and son Kevin, 30, with ex-wife Gina Kimmel.
Jimmy Kimmel and Molly McNearney's Family Photos Over the Years
Kimmel told Us Weekly that Billy was “doing great” in September 2019, two years after his heart surgery.
“He thinks he’s Spider-Man now, so we’re safe from crime,” Kimmel joked at the time. “He wears the costume all the time. He’s shooting webs all over the house.”
The ABC star continued, “He goes to preschool as his secret identity and then turns into Spider-Man when he comes home.”
The following year, Kimmel and McNearney showed video footage of Billy’s entire health journey on his show.
“We’re two weeks away from the election, and there is so much more than the election on the line. I want to bring us back to focus on something we can’t afford to forget, [which] is healthcare,” he said at the time. “My wife made a video that deals with our experience when it comes to preexisting conditions. We’d like you to watch this and pass it around to anyone who may have forgotten what this election is about.”
