Big Fat Quiz of the Year host Jimmy Carr has said he almost died after contracting a life-threatening condition. The comedian, 52, will return to our screens tonight (Friday) for the annual panel show that looks back at the past 12 months.
Jimmy has previously shared how he was diagnosed with meningitis when he was a toddler, and left “close to death”. The funnyman was just three years old when he was hospitalised and treated for the infection in Ireland, as reported by the Mirror.
Thankfully, his body was strong enough to get through it, but 48 years later, Jimmy reflected on what it felt like to be that close to death at such a young age. He told Kathy Burke on her Where There’s A Will There’s A Wake podcast: “You’ve got to be cruel to be kind … I think that is the first thing I ever said that my mother thought was funny.
“I had meningitis when I was a child. So my first memory is a lumbar puncture in Limerick in the General hospital. I was three, I think, and … I was always told it was very close to death. The doctor sort of went, ‘It’s going to be very painful.’ And somehow I’d heard the phrase, and I went, ‘You’ve got to be cruel to be kind’ in a little child’s voice.
“And I kind of appreciated that thing of life, because I was always told ‘Oh, you nearly didn’t make it’.’ Jimmy also told fellow comedian Kathy of how he would like to die one day.
He joked: “I want my kids and the people that love me to (be able to tell a story like), ‘Oh, Jimmy died… funny story. He flew to South Africa and he went on one of those great shark cage experiences and he forgoed the cage.
“He said, no cage for me, thanks. I’ll just jump in there with a fish’. And I was ravaged by sharks. That would be a way to go.”