TORN UP

Jimmy Kimmel Mourns Death of Beloved Colleague of 30 Years

The devastating loss comes less than a year after the death of Kimmel’s longtime bandleader and childhood friend.

Late-night host and Donald Trump nemesis Jimmy Kimmel paid a tender tribute to a “caring friend” who worked with him for nearly 30 years.

“No man saw me in my underpants more,” Kimmel quipped about Rodney Muñoz, the Emmy-winning costume designer for Jimmy Kimmel Live!, who died last week at 60.

“He was a devoted son, brother and uncle; a great baker, and a caring friend,” Kimmel wrote Friday in an emotional Instagram post.

Kimmel described Muñoz as “one of the most talented people I’ve had the pleasure of knowing. He was a funny, surly, hard-working man whose tough exterior hid a huge and generous heart.”

Kimmel did not reveal a cause of death.

Muñoz’s friend Joe Dietl announced in a Facebook post that the costume designer died on Oct. 2. Dietl, who also did not reveal a cause of death, said that Muñoz had contracted an extremely serious case of COVID-19 during the pandemic. He was placed in a coma and put on a ventilator to save his life and had been dealing with health issues ever since, according to Dietl.

“Rodney helped many of us through difficult times,” Kimmel noted in his post. “We will miss Rodney as he joins his beloved parents in whatever comes next.”

In addition to creating an array of often outrageous costumes for Kimmel’s sketches, Muñoz also styled Kimmel for his hosting stint at the Oscars in 2018.

He earned a Creative Arts Emmy for Outstanding Costumes for a Variety/Music Program in 2010 for his work on Kimmel’s show. Before his time with Kimmel, Muñoz worked as a costume designer for Late Show with David Letterman.

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It was the second devastating death in Kimmel’s inner circle in less than a year. Cleto Escobedo III, bandleader of the show’s house band Cleto and the Cletones and a close friend of Kimmel’s since childhood, died on Nov. 11, 2025, at 59.

“Early this morning, we lost a great friend, father, son, musician and man, my longtime bandleader Cleto Escobedo III,” Kimmel wrote on his social media at the time. “To say that we are heartbroken is an understatement. Cleto and I have been inseparable since I was nine years old.”

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Mary PapenfussReporter

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