Disc jockey was made, betrayed by his acid tongue
COLLEGE STATION, Texas — Disc jockey Don Imus, whose career was made and then undone by his acid tongue during a decadeslong rise to radio stardom and an abrupt public plunge after a nationally broadcast racial slur, has died. He was 79.
Imus died Friday morning 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, and his son Lt. Zachary Don Cates was returning from military service overseas.
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 women’s college basketball team as “nappy headed hos.”
His April 2007 racist and misogynist crack about the mostly black Rutgers squad, an oftreplayed 10second snippet, crossed a line that Imus had long straddled as his rants catapulted him to prominence. The remark was heard coast to coast on 60 radio stations and the MSNBC cable network.
Despite repeated apologies, Imus — just 10 years earlier named one of Time Magazine’s 25 most influential Americans — became a pariah for a remark that he acknowledged was “completely inappropriate … thoughtless and stupid.”
His radio show, once home to presidential hopefuls, political pundits and platinumselling musicians, was yanked eight days later by CBS Radio. But the shock jock enjoyed the last financial laugh when he collected a reported multimilliondollar settlement of his fiveyear contract with the company.
Imus’ unsparing onair persona was tempered by his offair 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 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 in California on a Riverside 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, was initially a problem: Imus was canned by a small station in Stockton, after uttering the word “hell.”
The controversy only enhanced his career, a pattern that continued throughout the decades.
A February 2006 profile in Vanity Fair contained the quote that might best serve as Imus’ epitaph.
“I talk to millions of people every day,” he said. “I just like it when they can’t talk back.”