Legendary comedian Gilbert Gottfried passed away on Tuesday at the age of 67 after a long illness. Now, his friends are speaking out to reveal the chilling jokes he told about his death before his passing.
Warning: Strong language in video below.
rip Gilbert Gottfried, gone but never forgotten, was literally a legend.
heres my favorite clip of him ever pic.twitter.com/bwwxA5bNWv
— hazel 🌺 @ 6.55+ (@Meowstyx) April 12, 2022
Gottfried Passes Away
Gottfried passed away on Tuesday afternoon from recurrent ventricular tachycardia, a heart disease that is brought on by myotonic dystrophy type 2.
Frank Santopadre, a friend and co-host of “Gilbert Gottfried’s Amazing, Colossal Podcast! With Frank Santopadre,” told The New York Post that Gottfried was just as funny as ever less than a month before his death.
“I don’t think he thought his days were winding down,” Santopadre said. “I think he thought he would get better and soldier on. Two weeks ago, he performed in Toronto and it was business as usual. Then we did our podcast on March 31 and he delivered. No way did Gilbert act like a person who was slowing.”
“I would ask how he was feeling. Gilbert would say he was fine, dodge the question and move on. He’s a guy who wanted to be funny,” he added. “Gilbert would call me on the phone, I’d answer and he would launch into impressions. I loved his Herve Villechaize as Al Pacino’s character in Scent of a Woman, which he threw himself into, headlong, milking the French accent for all it was worth.”
Related: Comedic Icon Gilbert Godfried’s Parting Words – His Final Tweet Speaks Volumes
Gottfried Joked About Death
Comedian Judy Gold, a close friend of Gottfried’s, recalled how he would often joke about death, even when he was sick.
“Gilbert [performed at] a benefit for my kid’s school,” she remembered. “A woman had a stroke during Gilbert’s set and she died. We joked that it was sad, but, making it even sadder, the last thing she heard was Gilbert’s voice.”
Penn Jillette, another close friend of Gottfried’s, had similar recollections.
“He made a lot of jokes about dying,” he said. “He had a defibrillator in his [chest]. If his heart went down, the defibrillator would kick him in the chest and it would be like getting kicked by a horse. He would say, ‘Horses hate me. They hate little Jews. They’re waiting on line to kick me in the chest. The horses have a newsletter about it.’”
“Very close to the end, doctors wanted to see if there was brain damage,” Jillette added. “They asked him to do arithmetic to show he was lucid. Instead, he sang the theme song to ‘Car 54, Where are You?’”
Gottfried And Jillette Joked About His Death Notice
Jillette went on to say that he and Gottfried even joked about his death notice.
“I called Gilbert on his 67th birthday and told him, ‘You can die now because the obituary would not say you died young,'” he recalled.
Jillette also talked about how the comedian Bob Saget dominated headlines for weeks when he died suddenly at 65 back in January.
“He said he would like to beat Saget,” Jillette stated. “Gilbert said that Saget got six days [of headlines] and he would get at least three. Gilbert won’t make the cover of People but I think he’ll get 300 years of people talking about him. That is his level of artistry.”
Related: Investigators Reveal How They Really Think Bob Saget Died
It’s nice to see that Gottfried maintained his sense of humor, right until the very end. May he rest in peace, and our thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends.
Take a look at Gottfried’s top 10 moments from WatchMojo. As you might imagine, some of them are crude: