DJ Don Imus dead at 79

Disc jockey Don Imus, whose career was made and then undone by his acid tongue throughout a decades-long 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 Middle in School Station, Texas, after being hospitalized since Christmas Eve, in accordance with a press release issued by his family. Deirdre, his spouse of 25 years, and his son Wyatt, 21, have been at his aspect, and his son Lt. Zachary Don Cates was coming back from army service overseas.

Imus survived drug and alcohol woes, a raunchy appearance before President Clinton and a number of other firings during his long profession behind the microphone. However he was vilified and ultimately fired after describing a ladies's school basketball group as "nappy headed hos."

His April 2007 racist and misogynist crack concerning the principally black Rutgers squad, an oft-replayed 10-second snippet, crossed a line that Imus had long straddled as his rants catapulted him to prominence. The comment was heard coast to coast on 60 radio stations and the MSNBC cable community.

Regardless of repeated apologies, Imus — simply 10 years earlier named considered one of Time Magazine's 25 most influential People — turned a pariah for a remark that he acknowledged was "utterly inappropriate ... inconsiderate and stupid."

His radio present, as soon as house to presidential hopefuls, political pundits and platinum-selling musicians, was yanked eight days later by CBS Radio. However the shock jock loved the final financial snicker when he collected a reported multimillion dollar settlement of his five-year contract with the company.

Imus' unsparing on-air persona was tempered by his off-air philanthropy, elevating more than $40 million for groups including the CJ Foundation for Sudden Toddler Demise Syndrome. He ran a New Mexico ranch for dying youngsters, and sometimes used his radio show to "solicit" friends for donations.

A pediatric medical middle bearing Imus' identify was opened at the Hackensack College Medical Middle in New Jersey.

Imus, born on a Riverside, California cattle ranch, was the oldest of two boys — his brother Fred later turned an "Imus In the Morning" show regular. The household moved to Flagstaff, Arizona, the place Imus joined the Marines earlier than taking jobs as a freight practice brakeman and uranium miner.

Solely at age 28 did he seem on the airwaves. His caustic persona, though it might later serve him properly, was initially a drawback: Imus was canned by a small station in Stockton, California, uttering the phrase "hell."

The controversy solely enhanced his career, a pattern that continued all through the many years.

Imus, shifting to larger California stations, earned Billboard's "Disc Jockey of the Yr" award for medium-sized markets after a stunt the place he ordered 1,200 hamburgers to go from an area McDonald's.

His subsequent cease was Cleveland, where he gained DJ of the yr for giant markets. By 1971, he was doing the morning drive-time present on WNBC-AM in New York, the nation's largest and most competitive radio market. Imus brought alongside a damaging taste for vodka, together with a growing popularity for irascibility.

In 1977, Imus was ignominiously dismissed by WNBC and dispatched to the relative anonymity of Cleveland. Within two years, although, he turned disaster into triumph, returning to New York and adding a new vice: cocaine. While his career rotated, his first marriage (which produced 4 daughters) fell aside.

Imus struggled with habit until a 1987 stint at a Florida alcohol rehabilitation middle, coming out just as WNBC turned the fledgling all-sports station WFAN — which retained Imus' non-sports present as its morning anchor.

Imus' career once more soared. Time Magazine named Imus one of many 25 Most Influential Individuals in America, and he was inducted into the Radio Corridor of Fame. His show started simulcasting on cable's MSNBC in September 1996.

In the decade earlier than his "nappy headed hos" debacle, Imus redefined his show by mixing his comedy segments with A-list visitors: politicians (Sen. John Kerry and Sen. John McCain), journalists (NBC-TV's Tim Russert and The New York Occasions' Frank Rich, musicians (Harry Connick Jr. and John Mellencamp).

A ebook plug on Imus' show guaranteed sales, and authors have been soon queuing up for a slot on the present.

However he not often missed a chance to get in hassle, even in the good occasions. He engaged in a long-running feud with shock jock Howard Stern, who usurped Imus' position because the No. 1 morning host in New York Metropolis.

And he outraged visitors on the annual Radio and Television Correspondents Affiliation Dinner in 1996, cracking sensible about President Clinton's extramarital actions as the first woman sat stone-faced close by. "Everyone knows you are a pot-smoking weasel," Imus stated at one other level about Clinton.

A White House spokesman referred to as Imus' bit "fairly tasteless."

One yr later, he was sued by a Manhattan decide after ripping the jurist on air as a "creep" and "a senile previous dirtbag." Critics carped over the show's content, with Imus' claim that he was an all-inclusive offender deflecting most complaints — although one present regular was fired in 2005 after a very vile crack about cancer-stricken singer Kylie Minogue.

A February 2006 profile in Vainness Truthful contained the quote that may greatest function Imus' epitaph.

"I speak to hundreds of thousands of people day by day," he stated whereas driving residence in a limousine after one present. "I identical to it once they cannot speak back."

Imus remarried in December 1994, to the former Deirdre Coleman. That they had one son, Wyatt.

Article initially revealed on POLITICO Magazine

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