Grant Imahara, an electrical engineer and roboticist best known for cohosting MythBusters, died on Monday, July 13. He was 49.
“We are heartbroken to hear this sad news about Grant,” Discovery Channel said in a statement on the network’s website. “He was an important part of our Discovery family and a really wonderful man. Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family.”
The Los Angeles native died unexpectedly after suffering a brain aneurysm, according to multiple reports.
After graduating from the University of Southern California with a degree in electrical engineering, Imahara worked as an engineer at THX and Industrial Light and Magic, where he worked on films including The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997), Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace (1999), Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones (2002), Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003) and The Matrix Reloaded (2003).
In 2005, the science wiz joined MythBusters in its third season as a member of the build team with Kari Byron and Tory Belleci, replacing Scottie Chapman. During his time on the show, Imahara sky-dived and drove stunt cars in addition to working on the Energizer Bunny, Star Wars’ R2-D2 and The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson’s robot, Geoff Peterson, among many other projects.
Imahara, Byron, 45, and Belleci, 49, left MythBusters in 2014 and reunited two years later on the short-lived Netflix series White Rabbit Project, in which they investigated jailbreaks, heists, weapons and other things.
Imahara also famously competed on BattleBots in the late 1990s and early 2000s. In 2018, he returned as a judge on season 8 of the Discovery Channel show.
After news broke of the TV personality’s death on Monday, Byron, Belleci and fellow MythBusters cohost Adam Savage took to social media to pay tribute to him.
“Somedays I wish I had a time machine,” Byron tweeted. Belleci wrote, “I just cannot believe it. I don’t even know what to say. My heart is broken. Goodbye buddy.”
For his part, Savage, 52, tweeted, “I’m at a loss. No words. I’ve been part of two big families with Grant Imahara over the last 22 years. Grant was a truly brilliant engineer, artist and performer, but also just such a generous, easygoing, and gentle PERSON. Working with Grant was so much fun. I’ll miss my friend.”
Imahara is survived by his fiancée, costume designer Jennifer Newman, to whom he got engaged in December 2016.
