At the beginning of Wednesday’s Rush Limbaugh Show, fourth wife Kathryn announced that her husband Rush Limbaugh had died of lung cancer at the age of 75, KPEL 96.5 reported.
Limbaugh, who once said he smoked multiple cigars a day and appeared on the cover of magazines like Cigar Aficionado and Smoke, announced in February 2020 that he was fighting advanced cancer.
He also had significant drug addiction issues, including abusing oxycontin to the point that he lost his hearing and had to get a cochlear implant to hear out of one ear. He was also charged in 2006 for having illegally obtained Viagra.
A college drop out, Limbaugh became a radio DJ who started a political talk radio show before taking a job in group sales for the Kansas City Royals Major League Baseball team. He started a political talk show in Kansas City (Missouri), from which he was fired. He was then picked up by a station in Sacramento, California.
His radio show was syndicated in 1988, eventually growing to the most-listened-to program in the country. Limbaugh’s conservative slant drove Republican narratives for decades, and his use of racial, ethnic and gender pejoratives made him popular with the GOP.
Donald Trump awarded Limbaugh a Presidential Medal of Freedom during the 2020 State of the Union address, a highly controversial move given Limbaugh’s highly partisan programming.