The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Iconic radio personality Don Imus dies at 79
Disc jockey’s long career marked by drug, alcohol abuse, several firings and controversy.
Controversial star who used insult humor to build — and ruin — his career in broadcasting was hospitalized on Christmas Eve.
Disc jockey Don Imus, whose career was made and then undone by his acid tongue, died Friday morning at age 79.
Imus had been hospitalized since Christmas Eve, according to a statement issued by his family. His wife, Deirdre, and his son Wyatt, 21, were at his side, and his son Lt. Zachary Don Cates was returning from military service overseas.
Imus survived drug and alcohol woes and several firings during his long career. But it was his April 2007 crack about the mostly black Rutgers women’s basketball team — a 10-second snippet in which he referred to them as “nappy-headed ho’s” — that crossed the line. Despite repeated apologies, he became a pariah. His radio show was yanked eight days later by CBS Radio.
Later, though, Imus collected a reported multimillion-dollar settlement of his five-year contract with the company.
Born on a Riverside, California, cattle ranch, Imus took to the airwaves at age 28. He worked his way up to larger California stations, and earned Billboard’s “Disc Jockey of the Year” award for medium-sized markets after a stunt in which he ordered 1,200 hamburgers to go from a local McDonald’s.
By 1971, he was doing the morning drive-time show on WNBC-AM in New York, the nation’s largest radio market. Imus brought along a destructive taste for vodka, along with a growing reputation for irascibility.
In 1977, Imus was ignominiously dismissed by WNBC. Within two years he was back from Cleveland and had added a new vice: cocaine. While his career turned around, his first marriage fell apart.
Imus struggled with addiction until a 1987 stint at a Florida alcohol rehabilitation center, coming out just as WNBC became the fledgling all-sports station WFAN — which retained Imus’ non-sports show as its morning anchor.
Imus’ career again soared. He was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame. His show began simulcasting on cable’s MSNBC in September 1996.
He redefined his show by mixing his comedy segments with A-list guests: politicians, journalists and musicians.
He engaged in a long-running feud with shock jock Howard Stern, who usurped Imus’ position as the No. 1 morning host in New York City.
And he outraged guests at the annual Radio and Television Correspondents Association Dinner in 1996, cracking wise about President Bill Clinton’s extramarital activities as the first lady sat stonefaced nearby. “We all know you’re a pot-smoking weasel,” Imus said at another point about Clinton.
A White House spokesman called Imus’ bit “fairly tasteless.”
Imus raised more than $40 million for groups including the CJ Foundation for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. He ran a New Mexico ranch for dying children. A pediatric medical center bearing Imus’ name was opened at the Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey.