Little more than a week after the show celebrated its 25th anniversary, “Pardon the Interruption” will be without one half of its venerable duo for the foreseeable future.
ESPN “Pardon the Interruption” co-host and NBA analyst Michael Wilbon said in a statement Monday that he will have to take an “indefinite leave of absence” from his roles for the network due to “multiple health issues,” which he indicated have been building over the course of years. Wilbon, 67, characterized the situation as a “trip to the injured list” that he hopes will not be “an extended one.”
It was only two weeks ago that he and co-host Tony Kornheiser celebrated the 25th anniversary of the show with a special episode. He was also celebrated on the “NBA Today” show where he is a regular contributor. But after hosting “PTI” last Monday, Wilbon missed the rest of the week.
Speaking on “The Tony Kornheiser Show” Monday, Wilbon said he missed last week’s shows because he was “just exhausted — beyond exhausted, lifeless,” and also indicated that he had been hospitalized. Wilbon: “The bill has come due from too many red-eye flights and just the stuff that I have ignored. And when you’re a diabetic person and you ignore some of these things, the bill comes due and it’s a damn more expensive bill than it might be for other people. … You can’t always pay the bill. The bill comes and it overwhelms you.”
Wilbon previously suffered a heart attack in 2008, but was not out for a substantial period of time.
“I have no idea exactly how this part of my journey will end up,” he said in his statement Monday, “The goal is to come out of it feeling much better than I do now and ready to return to sparring with Tony.”
A former columnist for The Washington Post, Wilbon was a regular sight on ESPN even before “PTI” as a panelist on “The Sports Reporters.” But it was PTI that launched his television career, which at one point even included hosting ABC’s NBA Finals coverage.
Kornheiser and Wilbon ultimately transformed the industry with the success of “PTI.” It was not so much that they paved the way for sports columnists to be come television personalities — others had gotten there first — but they changed the role from that of occasional commentator to the entertainer at the center of attention, in much the same way that Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel did for film critics.
Even as the network’s attention has been focused on Stephen A. Smith’s “First Take” and “The Pat McAfee Show,” “PTI” has remained the most-watched daily talk show on ESPN, and by a comfortable margin.
