Iconic radio host Neil Rogers passed away Friday at the Vitas Hospice at Florida Medical Center in Broward at the age of 68.
Suffering from multiple heart attacks and strokes, as well as dementia, one of the original "shock jocks" died of congestive heart failure.
"Neil was equally brutal on dumb callers and smart CEO’s, treating them all as imposters, one and the same," wrote Rogers' close friend Norm Kent recently in the South Florida Gay News. "He outed closeted leaders who tiptoed around homosexuality, relentlessly humiliating them on the air, whether they were Matt Drudge or Bryan Norcross."
Since he started his radio career in the 70s, no one was off limits on Rogers' show, and listeners tuned in to hear what the outspoken host would say next, and about whom.
"Everyone sought to be noticed even if it meant being the target of a notorious attack," Kent recalled. "Everyone respected Neil’s astounding incisiveness, his remarkable recall, and marvelous wit. He is an irreverent iconoclast whose quips would cut you like a sharp razor."
So sharp that last year he was taken off the air at WQAM after some not so kind words for his boss.
"F--- Joe Bell," to be exact.
"The Elvis of the airways is leaving the building," Kent wrote about his friend's demise, "departing with a legacy of enduring laughter and spectacular AM radio performances, the likes of which we will never hear on the air again."
