Phil Robertson, reality television star of Duck Dynasty, dies at 79

Phil Robertson, reality TV star and Duck Commander founder, has died aged 79. Photo / Getty Images

Phil Robertson, the patriarch of hit reality television show Duck Dynasty who founded a successful Louisiana hunting business before making a second career for himself on the Christian speaking circuit, died on May 25 at 79.

His family announced the death on social media but did not provide further details. In an episode of the podcast Unashamed with the Robertson family that aired in December, Robertson’s son Jase said his father had been diagnosed with a blood disease and early-stage Alzheimer’s disease.

Robertson was born on April 24, 1946, raised in northern Louisiana as part of a large family with seven children and little money. After attending what is now Louisiana Tech University on a football scholarship and then teaching and coaching for several years, he decided to pursue a business making and selling duck calls for hunters, patenting his first call in 1972.

Over the following decades, his company Duck Commander grew into a sprawling family business that sold hundreds of thousands of duck calls. The home he shared with his wife, Kay, and their children in West Monroe, Louisiana, was transformed into the family business’ factory, where the clan assembled, manufactured and shipped duck calls globally.

His son Willie, who became chief executive, pushed the family business into the world of entertainment – first with a show on the Outdoor Channel. In 2012, A&E Television broadcast the first episode of Duck Dynasty, an 11-season reality show that followed the family through everyday life in northern Louisiana.

The series catapulted Robertson and his brand of rural masculinity on to the national stage, attracting millions of viewers and catching the attention and support of conservative Republican political figures such as Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas.

The show’s fourth season premiere drew nearly 12 million viewers in 2013, making it the most watched cable show in history at that time, according to Rolling Stone.

Robertson also frequently generated controversy with offensive remarks on social issues. That same year, the self-proclaimed “Bible thumper” was briefly suspended from the show after he talked about homosexuality as a sin and compared bisexuality and promiscuity to “bestiality” in an interview with GQ. He also downplayed the era of racial segregation, claiming he had never seen “the mistreatment of any Black person” when growing up. “They were godly; they were happy; no one was singing the blues,” he said.

The Robertson family at the time said that despite Phil’s “coarse” language, he was just expressing the teachings of his faith.

Palin rallied to Robertson’s defence, arguing that the backlash he had faced amounted to an attack on free speech. “Those ‘intolerants’ hatin’ and taking on the Duck Dynasty patriarch for voicing his personal opinion are taking on all of us,” she wrote in a post on social media.

Days later, video resurfaced of him speaking at an event in 2009 in which he advised girls to marry at 15 or 16 years old. While some die-hard fans remained loyal to the show, ratings fell steadily, and its final episode aired in 2017.

A&E has announced it will revive the show in June, with a focus on the next generation of Robertsons. The programme will follow Robertson’s son Willie, his wife, Korie, and their growing family of adult children and grandchildren as they map out the future of the hunting-goods business.

In a second career as a speaker on the Christian circuit, Robertson amassed a large following among conservative evangelicals. He urged the Republican Party to “get godly” in a 2014 speech, lamenting how far America had strayed from the Founding Fathers’ vision of religion’s role in government.

In an interview with Fox News in 2019, Robertson spoke about the importance of religion to his life. “I looked up one day and said, ‘Man, I’m driven to do this. I have to do this’,” he said, recalling the moment he said he discovered his faith at the age of 28. In interviews, his wife has described Robertson’s religious conversion as a transformational moment for their marriage – ending a tumultuous chapter in his life of alcohol abuse.

His books, written with Mark Schlabach, included a memoir, Happy, Happy, Happy, and UnPHILtered, detailing his philosophy on life and liberty. Robertson hosted a podcast, Unashamed, with sons Jase and Al.

In 2016, Robertson endorsed Republican presidential candidate Cruz, releasing a video that asked, in part, which of the candidates could make a good duck gumbo. “He’s the man for the job, and he will go duck hunting,” Robertson said of Cruz in the spot, which featured the two men hunting ducks together.

In the 2019 interview, Robertson said the unlikely odds of his success only affirmed his faith.

“What are the odds? We’re down on the riverbank. I’m fishing the river, and I made a duck call that sounded like a duck,” he recalled. “They bought ‘em, and they bought ‘em and they bought ‘em. We look up, and here’s a bus from New York City, A&E, and they pitched a thing about a TV show,” he said.

“I would think there’s a God somewhere.”