The radio host everyone loves to hate returns with a new show after last April’s race debacle

By Loren Lankford

HOLLYWOOD, CA (Hollywood Today) 12/4/07- Don Imus, 67, introduced the new cast members of his WABC- AM morning show Monday, as he returned to the airwaves before a live studio audience.

And although one of the women introduced was black, it was only eight months ago that Imus was criticized for being racist and forced off his show. After making remarks about the Rutgers women’s basketball team, Imus was targeted for daily protests and the rest is history.

But Imus promises that he’s back with a new attitude. “I want to take a minute to introduce this new incarnation of ‘Imus in the Morning’”, he said Monday.

Imus, who claimed to agree with his firing from CBS earlier this year, spent the first half hour of the show talking about what happened in the spring. Yet although he claims that, “what happened is about what should have happened,” he still sued to collect $20 million for early termination of his contract, according to MSNBC.

Imus, who had a four hour meeting with the basketball team after the incident, seems to have calmed his ways but only time will tell if audiences care about a ex-shock jock racist with a new heart of gold (although he did call Hillary Clinton satan, receiving a large applause.)

The show broadcast live from Townhall Theater in Manhattan to a crowd of fans that spent $100 to get in.

He promised his audience that he would never say anything to make The Rutgers women wish they had not forgiven him after all. “No one else will say anything else on my program that will make anyone think that I didn’t deserve a second chance,” he declared.

His show can be heard on abcradio.com

-AFP contributed to this report