Rush Limbaugh, the legendary radio host who started to conduct political debates on his radio shows, has died at the age of 70 after battling lung cancer for more than a year. The iconic prodigy helped in shaping the modern-day Republican party through his conservative narrative behind the microphone. The news of his passing away was announced by his wife, Kathryn on his radio show.
Rush Limbaugh was born in Cape Girardeau, Missouri on January 12, 1951. He began his career on radio in 1967 when he was only 16 years old. There was no looking back from there onwards. He dropped out from college and devoted himself totally to his radio duties, becoming a disk jockey.
In an interview, he had confessed how he fell in love with the microphone. He had the power to keep the audience engaged from the very beginning, and that’s how his career started. He did local radio gigs in Kansas City, Sacramento, Pittsburgh, before moving to New York at WABC. New York became his home, and he flourished there in the early 90s. “The Rush Limbaugh Show” became a phenomenon on its own for the message it conveyed and the way it was conveyed to the general public.
Limbaugh’s fans and followers were fondly called “Ditto heads” as they used to use the term ditto after everything that Limbaugh said in his show. He was a staunch Republican supporter. A conservative to the core. All through his life, he propagated the ideology of conservatives in his talk show. He followed and supported Trump. He even invited him on his show, and it was an unprecedented two hours of a “radio rally”, giving a virtual space and opportunity to Trump to talk to his listeners directly.
Limbaugh was engraved in the “Radio Hall of Fame” and the “Broadcaster Hall of Fame” by the national association. He won the National Association of Broadcasters Marconi Award a record five times for “Excellence in Syndicated and Network Broadcasting”. His career spanned more than 33 years with over 27 million people tuning in to his weekly show according to his website. He was also named in the 10 most fascinating people in 2008 and made it to the Time’s list of 100 most influential people in the world in 2009.
Rush Limbaugh was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Trump in January 2020. Limbaugh was diagnosed with an autoimmune inner-ear disease which affected his hearing severely. He was diagnosed with level IV lung cancer in January 2020.
