Jimmy Kimmel pays tribute after costume designer Rodney Muñoz dies at 60

The reported Rodney Muñoz death has prompted a tribute from Jimmy Kimmel, who remembered the costume designer for Jimmy Kimmel Live! as a gifted, funny and hardworking friend. Muñoz was 60, according to Deadline.

Deadline reported on Oct. 10 that Muñoz’s friend, Joe Dietl, had announced that Muñoz died on Oct. 2. The report described Muñoz as an Emmy winner, without identifying the award or the year.

Kimmel posted his remembrance on Instagram on Friday, sharing behind-the-scenes images from the show. He called Muñoz one of the most talented people he had known and said that, behind a tough exterior, he had “a huge and generous heart.”

Kimmel also wrote that Muñoz had helped “many of us through difficult times,” and remembered him as a devoted son, brother and uncle, as well as a baker and caring friend. Those details were Kimmel’s personal recollections in his tribute.

Who was Rodney Muñoz?

Muñoz designed costumes for Kimmel’s ABC talk show beginning in 2002, Deadline reported. Kimmel described him in the Instagram post as the show’s costume designer for almost 30 years, a length of service that the report did not further explain.

Jimmy Kimmel Live! is hosted by Kimmel and broadcasts from the El Capitan Entertainment Centre on Hollywood Boulevard, according to ABC.

Dietl had written that Muñoz faced health problems in recent years after a COVID diagnosis that, he said, led to a coma and ventilator treatment, Deadline reported. That account does not establish a cause of death.

Kimmel closed his message by saying Muñoz would be missed. No further details about Muñoz’s death were included in the report.

This story draws on original reporting from Deadline.