Page 49 - People (February 2020)

Larry King beams as his
20-year-old son Chance
pats him on the shoulder,
bidding a cheerful farewell
as he leaves the Beverly Hills
apartment he shares with
his father. “I love having
him here with me,” says
the 86-year-old radio and
television host, who is also
dad to son Cannon, 19, and

three children over 50. “I’m
an older parent, and I really
didn’t think I’d live this long.
Absolutely nothing beats
parent hood.” Indeed, when
King nearly died last May
following a massive stroke,
it was Chance who inspired
him to hold on. “Chance kept
me going,” says King. “He
said to me in the hospital,
‘You can’t go, you’re not going
to go.’ And so I came home.”
Now the award-winning B y
host—whose current talk A I L I
show Larry King Now airs N A H A S
on the digital network Ora
TV—is slowly rehabilitating
P h o t o g r a p h s
from the stroke, using a
wheelchair and a walker to b y
J O N N Y
accommodate a weakened
M A R L O W
left foot. He’s strikingly
candid as he reflects on his
tumultuous year, which also
included heart surgery and a
painful divorce—his eighth—
from his wife of 22 years,
Shawn Southwick King, 60.
PHOTOGRAPH_OR_ILLUSTRATION_BY_FIRST_LASTNAME admits. “And I don’t have any
“It’s been a rough year,” King

idea what 2020 is going to be
like. But I feel positive, and I
feel hopeful. At 86, I can still
work. And I get to watch my
kids grow up. Life is a gift.”
by
Brooklyn
Raised
in
two immigrant parents (his

Good to Be King A F T E R A P A I N F U L R E C O V E R I N G ,
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