Don Imus Biography

Don Imus was the grumpy and controversial host of the nationally-syndicated Imus in the Morning radio show. The show, which ran in various incarnations for more than four decades, made him one of the best-known radio personalities of the pre-satellite era.

Don Imus started his career as a radio deejay in California in 1968 and moved to New York in 1971. After a stint in Cleveland, he returned to New York, where he gained a reputation as a loose cannon who often favored crude humor.

After highly-publicized battles with cocaine and alcohol, Imus reshaped his Imus In the Morning show in 1988. He stopped spinning records and turned the show into a forum for news, political issues, and charitable causes.Imus’s show originated at station WFAN in New York City, became nationally syndicated in 1993, and eventually was simulcast on cable TV channel MSNBC.

Imus’s sharp-tongued parodies offered biting humor and cranky off-the-cuff comments by “the I-Man,” as his on-the-air cohorts called him. The New York Times said Imus “tested the limits of shock radio with his irreverent attacks on celebrities, politicians, racial and ethnic groups, women, gay people and practically anyone whose head stuck up out of the foxhole.”

Imus in the Morning was canceled in April of 2007 by CBS Radio after Imus described the Rutgers University women’s basketball team on the air as “nappy-headed hos.” Imus later apologized, calling his own words “thoughtless and stupid,” but the apology wasn’t enough to save his job.

However, he returned to the air with Imus in the Morning in December 2007, this time on ABC Radio Networks. He retired in March of 2018 in a tearful on-air farewell.