Dr. Ruth Westheimer, sex therapist and pop culture icon, dead at 96

Dr. Ruth Westheimer, the pioneering sex therapist, author and talk show host, has died, her publicist announced. She was 96.

“It is with immense personal sorrow that I announce the passing of the iconic Dr. Ruth K Westheimer at the age of 96, whose ‘Minister of Communications’ I’ve been since 1981,” publicist Pierre Lehu said in a statement to WABC.

Her family added: “The children of Dr. Ruth K. Westheimer are sad to announce the passing of their mother, the internationally-celebrated sex therapist, author, talk show host, professor, and orphan of the Holocaust. She died peacefully at her home in New York City on July 12th surrounded by her loving family, just over a month after celebrating her 96th birthday.”

Known as “Dr. Ruth,” she first gained fame in 1980 when she hosted a New York City radio program called Sexually Speaking, which featured her answering listeners’ questions about sex and relationships.  The novelty of a tiny, grandmotherly woman with a heavy German accent speaking frankly about sex proved to be irresistible: The popularity of Sexually Speaking led to a media empire that included nationally syndicated radio and TV shows, books, computer games, speaking engagements and appearances in commercials.

Dr. Ruth was born Karola Ruth Siegel to an Orthodox Jewish family in 1928. An only child, her mother was able to have her sent to Switzerland after her father was taken by the Nazis; she never saw her family again. Following the war, she moved to what was then Palestine and fought in the war for Israeli independence.

She then moved to Paris, where she got a degree in psychology from the Sorbonne.  She relocated to New York City in the 1950s, and after two failed marriages, wed her third husband, Manfred Westheimer.

In New York, Westheimer received a master’s degree, and then a doctorate from Columbia.  She did postdoctoral work in sex therapy and then taught at several colleges.  After the community affairs manager at a local radio station heard one of her lectures on sexual literacy, she hired Dr. Ruth for Sexually Speaking.

In 2019, she was the subject of a documentary, Ask Dr. Ruth. In 2023, Westheimer was named New York State’s first honorary “ambassador to loneliness” by Gov. Kathy Hochul — a position Westheimer suggested — to “help New Yorkers … address the growing issue of social isolation.”