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The Untold Truth Of Don Imus

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Don Imus was 1 of America'southward almost polarizing radio personalities in life, and even in death the sharp-tongued DJ continues to split opinion. The shock jock was taken to hospital on Christmas Eve 2019, and passed away days later of complications from lung disease, his family confirmed (via the Associated Printing). News of the 79-twelvemonth-sometime's passing divided Twitter, where opinions were predictably stiff. Some users mourned the loss of a pioneer, while others were unable to forgive him for his numerous inflammatory remarks over the years. Beloved him or loathe him, 1 thing's for sure — the I-Man had a very interesting life.

John Donald Imus Jr. was built-in on a cattle ranch in California, simply his family moved to Arizona when he was still a kid. Co-ordinate to Vanity Fair contributor Buzz Bissinger (who spent a memorable week with Imus dorsum in 2006) he was born into "relative abundance," but his rancher turned existent manor investor male parent "squandered most of his coin." Imus had to start from scratch, and he rose to the claiming. He started out on local radio in 1968 and was more-or-less on the air for 5 decades, walking a tightrope with his content the entire time.

His checkered by is existence explored in greater detail at present that he'south gone, and it turns out his personal life was often just every bit shocking every bit his radio bear witness. This is the untold truth of Don Imus.

Don Imus was a 'horrible boyish'

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By his own admission, Don Imus was not a pleasant child. The DJ opened up almost his school days when he was visited past Dinitia Smith for a New York mag profile back in 1991, and he didn't carbohydrate-coat it. He told Smith that he was "bounced from ane hideous individual schoolhouse to another" during his childhood, merely he wasn't looking for any compassion. "I was a horrible adolescent," Imus revealed. "E'er the rotten kid who made fun of the fat kid in school." His own grandmother told him that he was going to "terminate up in prison" if he didn't straighten himself out, which is where the U.s. Armed Forces came in.

In 1957, a 17-year-old Imus dropped out of school and joined the Marines, only the war machine life didn't repress the joker in him. He transferred to the drum and bugle corps because it was "far easier lifting" according to Vanity Fair'south Buzz Bissinger, who got to hear a few stories almost Imus' fourth dimension in the military during his calendar week with the daze jock. According to Bissinger, Imus and a friend one time "stole the stars off a general's jeep and put them on their own vehicle but and so got mad at the sentry at the gate for not properly saluting them." This full general evidently had a sense of humor, because Imus was ultimately given an honorable discharge.

Getting fired has been Don Imus' thing for a long time

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Imus didn't go straight into radio after leaving the military. The I-Human being had a number of jobs earlier he made it big on the airwaves, though he apparently didn't last very long in any of them. He worked equally a uranium miner at the G Canyon for a spell, just that ended when he broke one (or both of his legs, depending on the account) in an on-site accident. It was unsafe work, just Imus "made a lot of money" while it lasted, he told theLos Angeles Times.

According to New York magazine, Imus' first post-military task was as a window dresser in San Bernardino, Calif. He was fired after he decided to put on a footling striptease with the mannequins, right in the middle of morn rush hour. These were the kind of stunts that would become him noticed after he moved into radio, only he was never bullet proof, especially in the early days.

Imus got sacked from a Stockton, Calif. radio station after a few incendiary incidents. Outset, he uttered the word "Hell" on the air. Then, in what proved to be the terminal straw for the provocative DJ, he staged an Eldridge Cleaver lookalike contest, which The Washington Mail service described as his "commentary on the FBI'southward inability to discover the fugitive Black Panther." Imus' own reasoning? "My position was that J. Edgar Hoover and Richard Nixon would accept any black person [equally Cleaver]," he told New York.

Laws were changed considering of Don Imus' on-air antics

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After his mouth cost him his job in Stockton, Calif., Imus found work at a radio station in Sacramento, Calif. It was here that he pulled a stunt that led to him existence crowned DJ of the year in the medium size markets category by Billboard. Per Vanity Fair, the boundary-pushing daze jock decided to pose every bit the sergeant of an invented trunk chosen the International Baby-sit for the gag, which involved calling upwardly a McDonald'due south and ordering 1,200 hamburgers for his non-real troops.

"Now, listen, on 300 of those I want you to concur the mustard," Imus told the baffled clerk (via New York magazine). "But put on plenty of mayonnaise and lettuce. But I don't want whatever onion on those. And on 200 — well, make that twenty — I desire you to hold the mayo and the lettuce but lay on the mustard and make those medium rare." The incident gained national attention and ultimately contributed to a new FCC ruling — going forward, DJs had to "identify themselves" when they made calls to the public.

The bigger effect was on Imus' career. It wasn't long before he landed a more lucrative job in Cleveland, Ohio, where he was able to reach a much larger audition. He once again won the Billboard honor for DJ of the year (this time in the major markets category) during his time in Cleveland, his last stop earlier he landed in New York.

The real reason Don Imus started drinking

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Don Imus brought his provocative act to the Big Apple in 1971 and was an immediate hit. He landed the WNBC forenoon drive time slot and his career took off (Life mag dubbed him the "country's most outrageous disc jockey," per Vanity Fair), but Imus found the business organisation side of the big leagues daunting. He didn't drink "much" before moving to New York, but Imus found that having a drink in his manus "help[ed] him get through" meetings with "sponsors."

As his drinking increased, his conduct and reliability declined. His attendance became so bad that staff at the station placed bets on whether he'd plow up at piece of work, and even if he did show, that was just the commencement hurdle. On one occasion, he crashed out mid-prove. "He was ordinarily able to get information technology together enough to perform on the air, merely ofttimes on the air it would get downhill pretty fast," the belatedly Michael Lynne, a lifelong friend of Imus who was acting equally his entertainment lawyer at the time, told Vanity Off-white .

Imus didn't show up for piece of work for a total of 100 days in 1973, and he continued to button his luck in the years that followed. Bosses finally lost patience and fired him in 1977, when he was forced to return (though only briefly) to Cleveland. "It was humiliating," Imus told New York magazine. "But I needed to make some money and get my human action together."

Don Imus slept on park benches with thousands of dollars in his pocket

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Alcohol wasn't Don Imus' only vice. He was reportedly a regular user of speed in the '70s (the swell photographer would accept it and shut himself abroad in his apartment's nighttime room, co-ordinate to Vanity Off-white). Imus was introduced to cocaine in the early '80s, which he dabbled with for a couple of years earlier he got sick of dealing with the people who supplied it and quit.

"Cocaine was fun for the first couple lines, and then you lot run out," he told the outlet, adding, "You always run out. Cocaine dealers are the second-almost irresponsible people on the planet. Actually. You can't go hold of them." Imus swore off the drugs in 1983, but he was however drinking heavily, and his beliefs only seemed to become worse. He began behaving erratically at piece of work (he even turned up with no shoes on one day) and he would sometimes sleep rough, crashing out "on park benches with thousands of dollars in his pocket."

By 1987, Imus' alcoholism deeply concerned those around him. "His confront resembled a death mask," his friend Kinky Friedman told New York magazine. "He looked like your garden variety hatchet murderer." In July of that yr, Imus went on a 9-day binge. When he woke upwardly and realized that he couldn't stop shaking without alcohol, he had his station ready a long overdue stint in rehab and he finally got himself clean.

The Howard Stern five. Don Imus feud was legendary

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Don Imus and Howard Stern were colleagues at WNBC-AM from 1982 to 1985, simply just because their shows shared a home doesn't mean that they saw eye-to-eye. According to author Rich Mintzer's Stern biography, Imus called Stern "a Jew b*****d" in 1984, and their feud intensified when Stern moved to the morning spot on K-ROCK. The rival shock jocks butted heads on several occasions and were constantly compared to one another, merely as far equally Imus was concerned, he was in a different league. "People perceive me every bit Howard Stern," Imus told The New York Times in 1993. "It'due south not the case. I'm Howard Stern with a vocabulary. I'k the man he wishes he could be."

Their grudge reached boiling point in 2003 when Imus discovered that ane of Stern's listeners had been spying on him in the gym and reporting dorsum. He responded by maxim that Stern would ever be his "b****." An incensed Stern called Imus' evidence when they were both on air and threatened to reveal things about his daughter and his past. A NSFW statement ensued, which Imus cut brusque — he played a song every bit Stern continued his tirade. "Prissy showdown, d*****bag," Stern said.

When he retired in 2018, Imus conceded that Stern was one of the biggest radio personalities of all time, and claimed that their feud was always pretty one-sided. "He had a big problem with me," Imus told NewsDay. "I didn't with him."

The fourth dimension Don Imus roasted Bill Clinton right in front of Hillary

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Don Imus was off the booze and fix to get serious by the time the 1990s rolled around, spurred on past the contend over the Gulf War. He transformed his prove from a crude spectacle full of edgy jokes and crazy characters like the Right Rev. Dr. Billy Sol Hargis to a place where serious political debate took identify. The likes of Joe Biden and John McCain began to appear every bit guests on his show, only when it comes to politicians, the DJ will forever be associated with Bill Clinton.

In 1996, Imus was asked to speak at the Radio and Television Correspondents Clan dinner in Washington. He bodacious the higher ups at the association that he wouldn't mock the less savory aspects of the Clintons' matrimony ("I can't tell womanizing jokes about the president with his married woman sitting correct there," Imus told them, per Fox News), but he did but that. On top of referring to the president as "a pot-smoking weasel," Imus saw Clinton'southward contempo appearance at a baseball game as a chance to joke about his alleged extramarital diplomacy.

"Bobby Bonilla hit a double; nosotros all heard the president in his obvious excitement holler, 'Go, babe!' I bet that's not the first time he's said that," Imus told the audience, which, according to The Baltimore Sunday, was largely appalled. Clinton's press secretary, Mike McCurry, called Imus' jokes "adequately tasteless" in a argument (via the Associated Printing).

The racist remark that ruined Don Imus' career

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In 2007, Don Imus fell from the tightrope he'd been walking for decades, and he fell difficult. This was, of course, when he infamously referred to the mostly-black Rutgers University women's basketball game squad as "nappy headed h**due south," sparking immediate backlash. "Nappy is in the dictionary of racism in the same category as pickaninny and due north*****," Anne Soukhanov (U.S. editor of the Encarta Webster'southward Dictionary) toldReutersat the time, describing Imus' language as "antiquarian racism — words not used anymore except past people who are very insensitive to the culture we live in."

At get-go, Imus scoffed at the idea that his words had offended people, telling everyone to cease getting bent out of shape over "some idiot comment meant to be amusing" (viaThe New York Times), only his bosses weren't happy. With force per unit area mounting, Imus admitted that his comments were "thoughtless and stupid." He afterwards met with the Rutgers team to apologize in person, merely the damage was already done — CBS Radio cut him loose, and Imus became "an immediate pariah," according to the Associated Press.

Imus bounced back on WABC a yr later CBS fired him, eventually retiring for good in 2018. One of his "few regrets?" The "Rutgers thing," as he put it toCBS Dominicus Morn, adding, "It did change my feeling well-nigh making fun of some people who didn't deserve to exist made fun of and didn't accept a mechanism to defend themselves."

Don Imus was a failed rock musician

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Doin Imus' brother Fred became a regular on his radio prove when the sometime became famous, but at one phase, Fred Imus was the more successful of the two siblings. In the period between him leaving the armed services and starting in radio, Don and his brother moved to Hollywood and started a band. They played "'60s stone'n'whorl and blues stuff" according to Imus, who told theLos Angeles Timesall nigh his failed music career dorsum in 1996. "I simply ran out of money, you know, and I was sleeping in this Laundromat on Vine Street, a block or two below Dusk," he recalled. "I used to sleep behind the dryers there, and so I'd go around to get money out of the phone booths."

Fred went solo and had some balmy success in the state music market, but Don couldn't catch a interruption. The simply reason he got into radio to brainstorm with was because he figured it was the only style he was going to get airplay for his music, but afterwards he landed his first DJ gig at a station in Palmdale, Calif., he came to a stark realization. "I recognized that substantially my records sucked," he told the Los Angeles Times. He quickly discovered that he was perfectly happy playing other people'south music — so long every bit he could talk in betwixt tracks. Every bit his have-no-prisoners persona developed, listeners began request for less music, and more than Imus.

There's a long history of Don Imus' racially insensitive remarks

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The Rutgers incident is the 1 that he'll always be remembered for, but it wasn't the only time that Don Imus fabricated a racially insensitive remark during his radio career. Long before he chosen the university'due south women's basketball game squad "nappy headed h**due south" on air, Imus raised eyebrows when he insulted 2 black journalists who were working forThe New York Times. The DJ called Gwen Ifill (who was the first African-American woman to ballast a weekly national public affairs prove) a "cleaning lady," and he as well went after sports columnist William C. Rhoden, calling him a "quota hire" for the newspaper.

Amazingly, Imus connected to make these kinds of commentsafterhis crack most the Rutgers players. When the furor died down, he made a tranquillity return to the airwaves, but the spotlight was on him once again in 2008 when he brought upwards suspended Dallas Cowboys cornerback Adam "Pacman" Jones. The NFL star'south arrests came up in conversation, and Imus asked sports announcer Warner Wolf what Jones' race was. When Wolf said "African-American," Imus responded with: "There you get. Now we know."

Imus claimed that he was really commenting on the unfair handling of African-Americans by police when he brand the comment, only Jones wasn't buying it. "Obviously Mr. Imus has bug with African-Americans," he told The Dallas Morn News (via ESPN). "I'g upset, and I hope the station he works for handles it accordingly. I will pray for him."

Don Imus was a philanthropist who loved kids

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The name Don Imus doesn't exactly jump to heed when philanthropy comes upward in conversation, only the shock jock was actually a supporter of some very worthy causes in his lifetime. Co-ordinate to the Associated Printing, Imus raised over $twoscore meg for charities and organizations that he supported, the CJ Foundation for Sudden Baby Death Syndrome among them. His biggest achievement was his ranch in New United mexican states, which he turned into a summer army camp for kids affected by cancer and blood disorders.

Most a hundred children would descend upon the ranch (which covered an expanse of nearly 4,000 acres) every yr to learn how to ride horses and all there is to know nigh farm life. Imus regularly plugged the ranch on his show in the promise of drumming up donations, and if that doesn't bear witness that he really cared nearly the kids in his care (he and his wife Deirdre ran the camps in person) then his argument with Dr. Howard Pearson, who served equally the army camp's medico, most certainly did.

Pearson sued Imus after the DJ went ballistic at him for refusing a ride to the hospital (Pearson walked instead) when there was a 16-year-old girl in severe hurting. Pearson claimed he wasn't aware of any emergency, but Imus later blew his lid at the campsite doc. Co-ordinate toVanity Fair, Imus called Pearson an "arrogant son of a b**** md who doesn't mind letting a child suffer."

Source: https://www.nickiswift.com/181298/the-untold-truth-of-don-imus/

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