Larry King was treated to two tragedies less than a month apart. His son Andy died of a heart attack on July 28, weeks before his daughter Chaia died on Wednesday after a battle with lung cancer. The 86-year-old King is still recovering from the stroke he suffered last year and was unable to travel to Florida after his son’s funeral last month due to the coronavirus pandemic. Andy was 65 and Chaia was 51.
“Everyone feels pretty bad and broken. Larry is really hurt and overwhelmed,” King’s granddaughter and Andy’s daughter, Jillian, told the Daily mail Friday. “He was very ill last year. His children all cared for him very closely. He is shocked that he has lost them now.” King adopted Andy in 1962 after he married his mother, Alene Akins, with whom he also welcomed Chaia. King’s three surviving children are Larry Jr., 58, from his marriage to Annette Kaye; and sons Chance, 21, and Cannon, 20, from his marriage to Shawn King.
Jillian said she heard about her father’s death just weeks after her father-in-law died in early July. “I was out of town because my dad’s dad was dead, so we were in Kentucky looking up for his funeral when I heard the news,” she told the Post. “My father died on July 28. We assume it was a heart attack, but there was never an autopsy.”
Chaia’s death was “more expected” because she had some time to deal with cancer, Jillian said. Jillian’s grandmother, Akins, died in 2017 after a second attack with lung cancer, Jillian said. She went on to describe her father as “wonderful” and “always optimistic.” Andy and Chaia “were both such wonderful people,” Jillian added. “They were lucky to be together in the end.”
A source close to King told the Daily mail he is “truly destroyed” by the death of his children. “He barely survived last year due to his own ill health; now he has lost two children but weeks apart,” the source said, adding that the last time the family was together was Father’s Day. “It was the last time they were all together and Larry will always cherish it,” the source said.
In November, King said Page Six he suffered a stroke early last year before Shawn filed for divorce. “I had what they call a mild stroke in March. Everything is back to normal except my left foot. I can’t walk on my left foot, so I walk with a walker,” the legendary broadcaster said. “It makes me feel old.” King said his doctors thought “to die” in March and he did not remember much about the experience. “I had a sepsis infection, I had put a new stent on my heart,” he said. “It’s been great – everyone tells me they do not believe I made it through.”
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