Late night audiences were given two Kimmels on Monday night.
Jimmy Kimmel‘s young son, Billy, made an appearance on his father’s late-night broadcast, “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” after undergoing a second heart surgery last week.
“Hi, I’m Jimmy. This is Billy,” Kimmel said holding his son, who was born in April with a serious heart issue. “He’s fine everybody. He may have pooped, but he’s fine.”
As he choked up during the show, the host joked that “Daddy cries on TV, but Billy doesn’t.”
Kimmel thanked the guest hosts who filled in for him last week while he took time off to care for Billy.
And he praised the “very bright and talented doctors and nurses” at the Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles who treated Billy and kids like him who, according to Kimmel, are having their health “especially threatened right now” because federal funding has run out for the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).
The program covers about 9 million children whose parents usually earn too much to qualify for Medicaid, but not enough to afford private health coverage. More than a million lower-income children are at risk of losing their health insurance next year if Congress doesn’t act soon.
Kimmel said CHIP is “not a partisan thing,” noting that Democrats and Republicans “overwhelmingly” supported it until now.
