Reports: Comedian Greg Giraldo dead at 44
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Comedian Greg Giraldo‘s website was directing fans to his Facebook page Wednesday to offer condolences after various media outlets reported that the comedian had died four days after being hospitalized for an accidental overdose. He was 44.
Word spread quickly on Twitter after fellow comic Jim Norton posted his confirmation of Giraldo’s death, along with a photo of the two together in June.
Comics including Louis C.K., Sarah Silverman and Michael Ian Black also tweeted their thoughts. ‘RIP Greg Giraldo. Belly-laugh hilarious, prolific, good & kind. A thousand oys can’t express,’ said Silverman.
A spokesman for Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, where Giraldo had been admitted Saturday, referred calls to Giraldo’s management company, which was not releasing information Wednesday afternoon. His management said in a statement to Punchline magazine, however, that it had postponed a scheduled showcase ‘out of respect to Greg’s family.’
The Comedy Central roast regular and recent ‘Last Comic Standing’ judge was a Harvard-educated lawyer and, according to a humorous biography on his website, the father of ‘three young boys he believes to be his own.’ Giraldo was hospitalized in New Brunswick, N.J., after he accidentally overdosed on prescription medicine Saturday night at a hotel in East Brunswick.
He’d been booked for shows at the Stress Factory in New Brunswick for four nights, closing Saturday, and was found by friends after he failed to show for a scheduled performance. Giraldo had been scheduled to perform in Levittown, N.Y., on Friday; in Portland, Ore., on Oct. 7; and in San Antonio on Oct. 15.
See an interview with Giraldo before the Comedy Central roast of David Hasselhoff in the video below (and throwing verbal barbs at the Hoff here, if you don’t mind some cursing). Punchline magazine has an interesting interview with him from 2009.
-- Christie D’Zurilla
Related dispatch from the Ministry of Gossip:
‘Last Comic Standing’ judge Greg Giraldo hospitalized for overdose
