Jimmy Kimmel was overcome with emotion as he spoke about his friend Bob Saget following the comic’s death at 65, hailing him the “sweetest man” in a specially recorded tribute aired before his talk show last night.

Filmed without an audience, the Live With Jimmy Kimmel host, 54, explained how he had tried to get through his tribute “like, fourteen times,” but found himself sobbing.

“If you read anything about Bob online last night, if you read any of the thoughts from people who knew him personally, a word that came up a lot was the sweetest, and Bob was the sweetest, he was the sweetest man and the reason people wrote that is because it’s true,” Kimmel said. “It’s the best word, if you had to pick one word to describe him, that was it - sweetest.”

“He was so funny and I’m not talking about Full House or America’s Funniest Home Videos or movies or stand-up comedy, I mean funny for real,” Kimmel explained. “When you walked into a party and you saw Bob and his wife Kelly [Rizzo] in the corner, you’d go straight to them and stay for as long as you could, because he had something funny to say about everything and nothing bad to say about anyone - never - if there were people he didn’t like, he kept it to himself.”

He went on to tell how he had been re-reading old messages that Saget had sent him, saying he had “so many wonderfully kind and supportive texts, emails, calls from Bob,” who “always had a compliment” and kind words for his friends.

“He’d write sometimes just to tell me he loved me and I know he did that for many people,” Kimmel added.

One particular act of friendship that he truly appreciated was how supportive Saget had been when his son Billy was hospitalised in 2017, saying the Full House star had “checked in a lot” with him.

Saget is survived by his second wife Kelly Rizzo and three daughters from his first marriage to Sherri Kramer.

Acknowledging the family, he said: “I want to send love to his daughters, to his wife Kelly into his friends who loved him so much, he was very kind to everyone and he had no problem telling everyone that he loved them and what you meant to him.”

The talk show host also made mention of personal tragedies that had befallen Saget in his lifetime, including the death of his sister Andrea at 35 from a brain aneurysm in 1985, and the death of sister Gay from the autoimmune disease scleroderma in 1994.

He praised Saget for his work with the Scleroderma Research Foundation, and told viewers that “if you want to remember him, there’s nothing [Saget] would appreciate more’ than a donation to the organization”.

It all became a bit too much for him as he tried to introduce a clip from 2017 when Saget appeared on his show with his Full House co-star John Stamos, to talk about the death of their mutual friend, comedian Don Rickles.

“Bob and John joined me on this show to eulogize Don and tell stories about him and how much we miss him, we never imagined four-and-a-half years later that we’d be talking about ...” Kimmel broke down.

“We just had a beautiful conversation that night, you can see when John and Bob were talking about how much they loved Don, how much they love each other so I thought it would be nice before we go on with the show, the regular show, to share just a bit of that as we remember Bob,” he eventually continued.

He wrapped up his message by saying: “We love you Bob and we’ll be right back.”

Saget was discovered unresponsive by staff in his hotel room at the Ritz-Carlton in Orlando, Florida, on Sunday.

An autopsy on his body has since been carried out, with Orange and Osceola Counties Chief Medical Examiner, Joshua Stephany, issuing a statement confirming “there is no evidence of drug use or foul play”.

“The cause and manner of death are pending further studies and investigation which may take up to 10-12 weeks to complete,’ continued Stephany. “Our condolences go out to Mr. Saget’s loved ones during this difficult time.”