In an attempt to dispel what he called “rumors” related to the condition of former radio talk-show phenomenon Neil Rogers, his attorney Sunday night made it clear that Rogers’ health is failing.
“Neil did not go to a hospice to recover,” Norman E. Kent said in an e-mail. “Doctors tell us there is no reason to believe he necessarily will. you see, he faces more than heart issues.”
Rogers, 68, was hospitalized last month in Planation following a heart attack and a stroke in October.
He had been living in Toronto since retiring from WQAM-560 in 2009, but kept his Plantation Acres home.
Rogers, the top-rated and highest-paid South Florida talk host for most of his 30-year career, suffers from “progressive vascular dementia, a very common form of dementia characterized by blockages in the blood supply to the brain, which lead to neurological symptoms,” Kent said.
“The complications associated with Neil’s diabetes and the corresponding stroke have functionally impaired his cognitive abilities. He is not always aware of his circumstances and surroundings.”
Rogers is experiencing mood disorders causing “periods of extreme agitation and confusion during the late afternoon or early evening hours,” Kent said.
But “he has also, when lucid, been buoyed by multiple colleagues in the broadcast industry reaching out to him, stirring nostalgic remembrances of days that once were.”
He remains “very much alive, though not fully the person he once was,” Kent said.
Rogers began his talk-show career on WKAT in 1976 with a mainstream issues format. by the time he got to WQAM, he had become a stream-of-consciousness entertainer both revered for — as callers often said, “telling it like it is” — and reviled for pushing the limits of decency.
He also worked at WNWS, WINZ, WZTA and WIOD.