LIMBAUGH REVEALS CANCER
Rush Limbaugh revealed he has been diagnosed with an advanced lung cancer.
The longtime conservative commentator and radio host announced the news Monday on his radio show.
“This day has been one of the most difficult days in recent memory for me. I’ve known this moment is coming in the program . ... I’m sure that you all know by now that I really don’t like talking about myself and I don’t like making things about me,” Limbaugh said. “I like this program to be about you and the things that matter to all of us.”
“I have been diagnosed with advanced lung cancer,” Limbaugh said, adding that his diagnosis was confirmed by “two medical institutions back on Jan. 20.”
Limbaugh said he first realized something was wrong on his birthday weekend last month.
“I thought about not telling anybody; I thought about doing this without anybody knowing, because I don’t like making things about me,” Limbaugh said. “But there are going to be days when I’m not able to be here because I’m undergoing treatment or I’m reacting to treatment.”
He added: “I hope I will be talking about this as little as necessary in the coming days, but we have a great bunch of doctors, a great team assembled we’re at full speed ahead of this.”
Limbaugh said he decided to explain what was going on in his life because he knew it would excite curiosity if he wasn’t at his usual post every day.
“It’s not that I want to fool anybody, it’s just that I don’t want to burden anybody with it and I haven’t wanted to,” he said. “But it is what it is. “You know me, I’m the mayor of Realville.
“This has happened, and my intention is to come here every day I can and to do this program as normally and as competently and as expertly as I do each and every day because that is the source of my greatest satisfaction professionally, personally. I’ve had so much support from family and friends during this. It’s been tremendous.”
He said he was experiencing “zero symptoms” at the moment.
“What led to shortness of breath that I thought might have been asthma or my heart, ... it was not that. It was a pulmonary problem involving malignancy,” he explained. “I’m going to be gone the next couple days as we figure out the treatment course of action and have further testing done. But as I said, I’m going to be there as often as I can.”
USA TODAY reached out to Limbaugh’s reps for comment.
Only last month Limbaugh, whose contract was due to expire this year, renewed his deal with syndication company Premiere Radio Networks – and it was his friend President Donald Trump who shared news that it was a four-year deal.
Premiere, a division of radio giant IHeart Media, confirmed to CNN Business that Limbaugh renewed a longterm agreement, declining to comment on specific terms.
But Trump talked about it at a rally in Miami on Jan. 3, where the president launched an “Evangelicals for Trump” coalition.
“We have great people,” Trump said.
“Rush just signed another four-year contract. He just wants four more years, okay.”
Trump and Limbaugh, longtime allies even before Trump ran for president, were seen eating lunch and chatting with others at Trump’s West Palm Beach golf club just before Christmas.
Limbaugh, 69, is the leading conservative talk-radio host, a star of the airwaves for more than three decades having gotten his start in the 1970s. According to Talkers, which tracks audience numbers for talk radio, Limbaugh is the most-listened to radio host in the country, with 15.5 million listeners tuning in weekly as of December 2019.
Originally from Missouri, Limbaugh comes from a family of attorneys but wanted to pursue his own dreams in radio.
He launched “The Rush Limbaugh Show” in 1988 and he was inducted into the National Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame in 1998, according to his website.
Limbaugh has dealt with health crises in the past, including an addiction to opioids.