Longtime radio icon Don Imus dies at 79
NEW YORK >> Radio personality Don Imus, whose decades-long career on the air was made and ultimately undone by his acid tongue, died Friday at age 79.
Imus died at Baylor Scott and White Medical Center in College Station, Texas, after being hospitalized since Christmas Eve, according to a statement issued by his family. Deirdre, his wife of 25 years, and his son Wyatt, 21, were at his side, with his son Zachary Don Cates returning from military service overseas.
Imus died of complications from lung disease.
Imus survived drug and alcohol woes, a raunchy appearance before President Clinton and several firings during his long career behind the microphone. But he was vilified and eventually fired after describing a mostly black women’s college basketball team as “nappy headed hos.”
His April 2007 racist and misogynist crack about the Rutgers squad, an oft-replayed 10-second snippet, crossed a line that Imus had long straddled as his irascible rants catapulted him to prominence. The remark was heard coast to coast on 60 radio stations and on a simulcast aired each morning on television’s MSNBC.
At the time, his “Imus in the Morning” show was home to presidential hopefuls, political pundits and his favorite musicians — a must-listen in the media and political corridors of New York and Washington. Ten years earlier, Time magazine had named him one of the 25 most influential Americans. But the remark made him an immediate pariah and he was dropped by CBS Radio and MSNBC.
Imus apologized repeatedly, calling his remark “completely inappropriate ... thoughtless and stupid,” and he met with the team
to hear how his comment hurt them. Although he returned to radio, and Fox Business Network simulcast his show for a number of years, he never approached the same influence before retiring in 2018.
The incident “did change my feelings about making fun of some people who didn’t deserve to be made fun of and didn’t have a mechanism to defend themselves,” Imus told CBS News upon his retirement.
Imus’ unsparing on-air persona was tempered by his off-air philanthropy, raising more than $40 million for groups including the CJ Foundation for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. He ran a New Mexico ranch for dying children, and he often used his radio show to solicit guests for donations.
A pediatric medical center bearing Imus’ name was opened at the Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey.
Imus, born on a Riverside, Calif., cattle ranch, was the oldest of two boys — his brother Fred later became an “Imus In the Morning” show regular. The family moved to Flagstaff, Ariz., where Imus joined the Marines before taking jobs as a freight train brakeman and uranium miner.
Only at age 28 did he appear on the airwaves. His caustic persona, though it would later serve him well, initially was a problem: Imus was canned by a small station in Stockton, Calif., for uttering the word “hell.”
The controversy only enhanced his career, a pattern that continued throughout the decades.
Imus, moving to larger California stations, earned Billboard’s “Disc Jockey of the Year” award for mediumsized markets after a stunt in which he ordered 1,200 hamburgers to go from a local McDonald’s.
He moved to Cleveland, and by 1971 was doing the morning drive-time show on WNBC-AM in New York, the nation’s largest and most competitive radio market. He brought along a destructive taste for vodka.
He was a “shock jock” before the term was coined, and listeners flocked to hear what outrageous things he’d say, like phoning people to wake them up and ask, “Are ya naked?” His demons also made it an open question many mornings whether he’d show up for his 6 a.m. shift.
Imus was fired by WNBC but returned in triumph two years later, adding a new vice: cocaine. While his career turned around, his first marriage, which produced daughters Nadine, Ashley, Elizabeth and Toni, 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’ nonsports show as its morning anchor.
His career soared again. He was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame and MSNBC signed up his simulcast when the network started in 1996. He mixed comedy with A-list guests like Sen. John Kerry and John McCain. Media personalities like NBC’s Tim Russert and Frank Rich of The New York Times were regulars.
A book plug on Imus’ show guaranteed sales, and authors soon were queuing up for a slot on the show.
Imus rarely missed a chance to get in trouble, even in the good times. 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.
But as he retired, Imus called Stern one of the top five radio personalities of all time. He gave himself the same rank, adding Arthur Godfrey, Wolfman Jack and Jack Benny.
“He had a big problem with me,” Imus said about Stern. “I didn’t with him.”
In 1996, Imus outraged guests at the annual Radio and Television Correspondents Association Dinner, cracking wise about President Clinton’s extramarital activities as the first lady sat stone-faced nearby. “We all know you’re a pot-smoking weasel,” Imus said at another point about Clinton.
A year later, he was sued by a Manhattan judge after ripping the jurist on air as a “creep” and “a senile old dirtbag.” Critics carped over the show’s content, with Imus deflecting most complaints by claiming he was an allinclusive offender. However, one show regular was fired in 2005 after a particularly vile crack about cancer-stricken singer Kylie Minogue.