Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel announced he is taking the rest of the week off after the death of his best friend and the show’s bandleader, Cleto Escobedo III.

Kimmel gave an emotional tribute to his childhood friend on Tuesday during “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”

“We’ve been on the air for almost 23 years, and I’ve had to do some hard monologues along the way, but this one’s the hardest because late last night, early this morning, we lost someone very special who was much too young,” he said.

Kimmel met Escobedo when they were children after Kimmel’s family moved from Brooklyn, New York, to Las Vegas, Nevada. Escobedo, whom he called Junior, lived on the same block.

“We became like 24-7, ‘Mom, please let me sleep over please’ kind of friends,” he said. “One summer, I slept over at the Escobe

See Full Page