Rush Limbaugh Cause Of Death: Conservative Radio Host Dead At 70

Rush Limbaugh has died at the age of 70 after a long battle with lung cancer. The conservative radio host's family confirmed his passing on Wednesday morning.

Limbaugh was diagnosed with Stage IV lung cancer in January 2020 and informed his radio listeners in October that he had lived past his prognosis but had seen his cancer take a turn for the worse. Limbaugh was a long-time smoker, a cigar being part of his personal brand.

"Losing a loved one is terribly difficult, even more so when that loved one is larger than life," his wife Kathryn Adams Limbaugh said on his radio show Wednesday. "Rush will forever be the greatest of all time."

He was awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom by the Trump administration. Limbaugh was one of Donald Trump’s most important allies, providing him with a platform early in the 2016 presidential primary.

Limbaugh spent decades on the air, transitioning from music and some news to more political coverage in 1997 after the Federal Communications Commission repealed the Fairness Doctrine, Fox reports. Now that stations could broadcast hardline politics without giving equal airtime to opposing views, Limbaugh’s path to alt-right celebrity was cleared.

His controversial views and statements earned him plenty of enemies. Limbaugh denied climate change, broadcast “AIDS updates” to the song “I’ll Never Love This Way Again” and mocked victims of Parkinson’s disease, The New York Times reports.

Limbaugh had no children. He is survived by his wife and his brother David Limbaugh (along with David's wife and children).