Comedian Dies After Battle with COVID-19

Comedian Joe Luna, who performed at Pasadena’s Ice House and other Los Angeles area comedy clubs under the stage name Joe El Cholo, died just days after documenting his experience with coronavirus online.

In a video posted on Instagram, the 38-year-old comic, a diabetic double-amputee suffering from pneumonia, warned followers that COVID was “no joke,” according to The Sun, one of a number of United Kingdom publications covering Luna’s death. 

Luna opened up about living with the deadly disease after his girlfriend and children tested positive for the virus. 

In the days running up to his death, Luna shared several messages in which he detailed the horrendous symptoms he was experiencing.

“I’m going to show you guys my journey through my good and bad times because it’s all about showing my people out there, if you think that Covid is a joke, if you think this won’t be you,” he said in one post on Nov. 22, “then trust me; it hits everybody differently.”

In another post, he wrote: “Wow, if it’s not one thing it’s another. Dealing with chest pains and the pneumonia and the Covid year, it’s pretty intense. I need all the prayers.”

Choking up at times, the comedian talked candidly about his fears for himself and his family, financial pressures, and other challenges of fighting the illness, according to a report in the Sacramento Bee.

“It’s very scary, guys, you know, out there,” Luna says. “Take care of yourselves. Wear your mask. It doesn’t make you look stupid if you wear your mask. If anything, it makes you look concerned. It makes you know that, ‘hey, I’m not trying to go through that.’” 

Luna was reportedly admitted to Victor Valley Global Medical Center after his condition worsened.

The comedian died at the hospital on Nov. 23.

Luna’s son, Jose Talavera, who also tested positive for the virus, said that the illness was particularly challenging for his dad because he was diabetic and a double amputee.

“It was like his lungs were hurting more than we all felt before,” Talavera told The Sun. “All of us were coughing and sneezing.”

For his funeral, Talavera said his father “doesn’t want anyone crying so we’re going to put together a show because that’s what he would have wanted.”

A “mask mandatory” open viewing and comedy show will be held for Luna from 4 to 7 p.m. Saturday outside a Los Angeles funeral home, according to a post on his Instagram account.