Historical Events  People
Larry King

Alternate:
Larry King died in 2010

Current:
Larry King died in 2021

Larry King died in 2010, 2013, 2019 and 2021

Larry King was the legendary US chat show host with a career spanning many decades.

He was most famous for the shows which bore his name. Larry King Live and Larry King Now,  and his political show, Politicking with Larry King, up until 2020.

Reports of his death in 2021, however, came as a surprise to many, since they were sure he was already dead, and the years this was supposed to have happened range from 2010, 2013 and 2019.

Lawrence Zeiger

Larry took the surname King just a few minutes before going on air early on in his career, since he felt his actual surname of Zeiger was too difficult to pronounce for most people.

He appeared in many movies, often as himself, and was also a prolific writer and guest himself on other talk shows. He suffered a heart attack in 1987 and as a result founded The Larry King Cardiac Foundation, a non-profit to help those without the financial means to deal with the same medical issue he experienced. He had a quintuple heart bypass, and ended up writing two books about his experiences with it.

He was married 8 times, once to the same woman twice.

In 2017 he had lung surgery to remove a cancerous tumour - this was discovered during one of his routine heart scans.

In 2019 he had more major heart surgery, and this could have contributed to many thinking that is the date he died. He recovered, and in fact went on to host his politics show subsequently.

When a famous individual appears in the news for health scare reasons, it's only natural some may not fully pay attention and assume the worse. Then through a series of "Chinese Whispers", the misinformation gets circulated as fact. The multiple death reports of Larry King appear to be a classic example of this phenomena.