Legendary stand-up comedian Norm MacDonald died on Monday at the age of 61 after a long battle with cancer, "Deadline" writes.

According to his longtime partner and friend Lori Joe Hexstra, he has been battling cancer for nine years.

- He was proud of his jokes and never wanted the diagnosis to affect how the audience or his loved ones see him. "We will miss him terribly," she said.

McDonald was not only involved in stand-up comedy - he starred in movies, but also wrote the book "Based on a True Story - Not Memoirs". Celebrities often talked about him as one of the most read and smartest people in Hollywood.

For years he had problems with gambling, and even twice he went completely bankrupt, which he often talked about while appearing on television.

From 1993 to 1998, he edited "Weekend Update", part of the popular show "Saturday Night Live", where he joked and talked about current events without a hair on his tongue.

That's why he was reportedly fired. For months, he has ruthlessly commented on O.'s trial. J. Simpson, a famous athlete who killed his wife and her lover in cold blood. What Norm did not know was that Simpson was friends with Don Olmeier, the president of the NBC television network West Coast, who fired him.

Norm MacDonald has hosted the "Norm MacDonald Live" video podcast since 2013, assisted by young comedian Adam Igget, who has often been the main target of Norm's jokes and the subject of ridicule from celebrities including Fred Stoller and Larry King. Billy Bob Thornton, Tim Allen and many others.

He felt that there was no topic that was untouchable for comedy - whether it was cancer that eventually killed him, the 11/XNUMX terrorist attacks, Hillary Clinton or the sponsors who funded his show.

Comedian Nick Mullen, from the "Town Town" podcast, may have best described Norm, saying on one occasion that he was "the conscience that modern comedy has long since lost" because he never cared about political correctness or offending anyone. he just wanted to make people laugh.