Larry David honored the late Richard Lewis on Wednesday with a bittersweet statement about the bond the two friends and comedians shared.
“Richard and I were born three days apart in the same hospital and for most of my life he’s been like a brother to me,” David said in a statement shared with multiple outlets.
The “Curb Your Enthusiasm” creator explained why he would “never forgive” his longtime co-star on the series for dying.
“He had that rare combination of being the funniest person and also the sweetest,” David said. “But today he made me sob and for that I’ll never forgive him.”
Lewis, who revealed last year he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, died Tuesday night of a heart attack at the age of 76.
The two comedians first met as preteens at summer camp, but they didn’t hit it off right away, Lewis confessed to The Spectator last year. Instead, they were “arch rivals.” Lewis considered David “cocky” and even tried to hit him with the ball when playing baseball.
The two reunited more than a decade later when they were both standup comics in New York City, but it wasn’t until a night of heavy drinking that they recognized each other ― and a beautiful friendship was born.
“He loves me and I’m his dearest friend,” Lewis said of his former nemesis, though he didn’t expect David to wax poetic.
“It would be rare for him to go deep like that,” he said.
