Getty Rush Limbaugh attends the premiere of HBO's "Bernard and Doris" at the Time Warner screening room on January 30, 2008, in New York City.
Rush Hudson Limbaugh III, a highly controversial conservative radio host, died on February 17, 2021. He was 70.
Limbaugh’s cause of death stemmed from his battle with stage 4 lung cancer, a diagnosis he revealed in February 2020, the same month he received the Medal of Freedom from former President Donald Trump during his State of the Union address.
On Wednesday, his fourth wife, Kathryn Adams Limbaugh, announced the news at the start of his show, “The Rush Limbaugh Show,” which first premiered in 1988. Though Limbaugh was married and divorced three times before marrying Adams in 2010, he never fathered any children.
GettyRush Limbaugh, one of the judges for the 2010 Miss America Pageant, speaks during a news conference for judges at the Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino January 27, 2010.
Despite being childless, Limbaugh declared that “marriage is about raising children. That’s the purpose of the institution,” as reported by Boston Magazine.
Limbaugh married his first wife, Roxy McNeely, a sales secretary, in 1977, but they divorced 18 months later. In 1983, he wed Michelle Sixta, a Kansas City Royals stadium usherette, a marriage that lasted five years. Limbaugh was still married to his third wife, Marta Fitzgerald, an aerobics instructor, when he met Adams at a charity golf tournament. Fitzgerald and Limbaugh divorced in 2004 after 10 years of marriage.
Limbaugh Said He was ‘Too Much In Love With Myself’
GettyRush Limbaugh looks on before introducing US President Donald Trump to deliver remarks at a Make America Great Again rally in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, on November 5, 2018.
Following Limbaugh’s divorce from Fitzgerald, the The Way Things Aren’t author said he had little time for love. As the Palm Beach Post reported in 2004, Limbaugh said, “I’m too much in love with myself.” This statement could also explain why he never had children of his own.
As for the key to making a lasting relationship work, “If you want a successful marriage, let your husband do what he wants to do,” Limbaugh said.
Limbaugh Made of Fun of Numerous Presidents’ Children for Their Ugly Looks
BREAKING: Rush Limbaugh’s wife Kathryn announces on his radio show that he passed away this morning due to complications from lung cancer
“Rush will forever be the greatest of all time.”
While Adams Limbaugh spoke highly of her husband following his death, calling him “an extraordinary man, a gentle giant, brilliant, quick-witted, genuinely kind, extremely generous, passionate, courageous, and the hardest working person I know,” others can’t help but remember many of his disparaging comments, especially about former presidents’ children.
In 1988, Limbaugh referred to Amy Carter as “the most unattractive presidential daughter in the history of the country.” In 1992, he referred to Chelsea Clinton as the “White House dog.”
That time Rush Limbaugh made fun of Michael J Fox and his Parkinson’s disease.
Limbaugh, however, was always a polarizing figure in the media, as he mocked people who have disabilities and continuously attacked minorities. The New York Times reported in 1990 that he opened his show by stating “With talent on loan from God, this is Rush Limbaugh… On the cutting edge of societal evolution… With half my brain tied behind my back to make it fair.”
The New York Times described the shock jock’s show with the following statement: “His subject is politics. His stance: conservative. His persona: comic blowhard. His style: a schizoid spritz, bouncing between earnest lecturer and political vaudevillian.”