Controversial radio host Don Imus dies at 79

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) - Don Imus, the broadcast provocateur who was a staple of morning drive-time radio for decades, died Friday in College Station, Texas after being hospitalized on Christmas Eve. He was 79.

Imus retired from his nationally syndicated "Imus in the Morning" radio show in March 2018. He was known to fans as the"I-Man" who prided himself on speaking his mind about politics, pop culture and other hot topics.

But Imus faced a barrage of criticism and lost some of his national platform in 2007 after he made racially disparaging comments about members of Rutgers University's women's basketball team, calling them "nappy-headed hos." He later met with members of the team and apologized in person.

"I wasn't trying to be outrageous," Imus told CBS News last year about his long run as a radio personality. "It's just the way I thought. My feeling was then, and is now, that if they didn't like what I did, get somebody else to do it."