Bob Barker, the legendary host ofThe Price Is Right, has died, PEOPLE can confirm. He was 99.
Barker died of natural causes in his longtime Hollywood Hills home this week, Roger Neal — who served as his publicist from 1987 through 1994, and again from 2020 — announced Saturday on behalf of Barker’s girlfriend,Nancy Burnet.
“It is with profound sadness that we announce that the World’s Greatest MC who ever lived, Bob Barker, has left us," Neal said in a statement.
“I am so proud of the trailblazing work Barker, and I did together to expose the cruelty to animals in the entertainment industry and including working to improve the plight of abused and exploited animals in the United States and internationally," Burnet added in her own. “We were great friends over these 40 yrs. He will be missed.”
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Several months earlier, Barker’s manager confirmed to PEOPLE that an ambulance and the fire department responded to his Hollywood Hills home for a “non-emergency back problem” in October 2018.
Afterwards, his manager said Barker was “fine and resting at home.” The incident came more than a year after he fell and hit his head at his home in June 2017.
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“I have thought every year for the last 10 or 15 years that maybe I should quit, and then I think, ‘No, I’ll do it for another year,'” he toldEntertainment Weeklyin 2007. “I regret that I’m quitting now.'”
Bob Barker during his last taping of The Price is Right.Mark Davis/Getty
Barker began his television career after moving out to Los Angeles in 1956. It was only a matter of days before he secured his first hosting gig onTruth or Consequences, where he worked for 18 years.
He began hostingThe Price Is Righton CBS in 1972. An overnight hit, it became the longest-running game show in U.S. history and turned Barker into the longest-tenured game show host.
“It’s probably hard to believe, but I have thoroughly enjoyed doing this show for all these years,” Barker once toldEntertainment Weekly.
Barker was previously married to wife Dorothy Jo for 36 years before her death in 1981. The couple had no children, and the television host never remarried.
source: people.com
