- LOS ANGELES: A longtime friend of Sam Kinison said Thursday that he recently obtained DNA testing shows the late comedian fathered a daughter with his ex-wife and that he hopes the revelation will free him from years of unpaid child support penalties.
Comic Carl La Bove filed a petition Thursday to try to invalidate a nearly 13-year-old agreement requiring him to make payments for the girl, who is now 21 years old. As of 2009, La Bove owed nearly $188,000 in back child support, according to a statement filed with his petition. The debt has left La Bove without a driver's license, a passport and shoddy credit, he said. But he said any animosity he felt toward Kinison for sleeping with his now ex-wife during Kinison's hard-charging heyday in the late 1980s is gone.
"I learned to forgive him for his actions," La Bove said outside a downtown Los Angeles courthouse Thursday. A comedian who opened for Kinison for years and was with him when he died in a car accident in California in 1992, La Bove is hoping that the release of child support obligations will allow him to drive himself to gigs from now on.