[2] Randi grew up in the Brooklyn and Queens boroughs of New York City, her father was a mechanical engineer and World War II veteran and her mother was a dress shop worker; they divorced by the time Rhodes was 15 years old.

[3] Rhodes has described her adolescence as mischievous and cites it as why she enlisted in the United States Air Force.

Rhodes went through basic training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas.

From there she went to Sheppard Air Force Base in Wichita Falls, Texas, and was being trained as a flight engineer.

After she transferred to what would be her permanent station in New Jersey, she decided to leave the active-duty Air Force through the Palace Chase program and was honorably discharged after three years service (two active duty and one reserve) at the age of 21.

In the late 1980s, she was hired out of that medium market directly to New York City by WAPP "The Apple", owned at the time by Doubleday Broadcasting.

[7][8] While teaming with host Perry Stone at Milwaukee's WQFM, Rhodes was suspended in 1987 when their program offended the gay community and led several businesses to cancel ads.

With her distinctive Brooklyn-Queens accent, she would take calls spanning the political spectrum, aggressively promoting her views.

I wanna see her have to stand beside her husband at one of those mandatory 'I have sinned against you; I'm a whore' kind of a press conference.

'"When a video of the event was made public the following week, Air America suspended her for "inappropriate comments".

[citation needed] Geraldine Ferraro called for Rhodes' employment to be terminated when the personal attacks directed towards her and Clinton began circulating through the media.

[13] Rhodes claimed that Air America breached its contract with her, and questioned the network's commitment to free speech.

Later that evening, she conducted an interview on The Mike Malloy Show in which Rhodes went into greater detail concerning the suspension.

"[citation needed] Air America suspended her until a settlement could be reached concerning the contract which was still in place and had an additional year to run.

In the interim, Air America management decided to conduct market research to assess her value to the company.

On her program's inaugural Nova M Radio broadcast she also said that she had objected to Air America's new owners demanding her contract be amended to remove her walk-away clause.

Political commentator and one-time Congressional candidate Nancy Skinner hosted the show in Rhodes' absence beginning February 5.

[citation needed] Following this, Anita Drobny of Nova M Radio posted a message on the Nova M site saying that they were unable to disclose details of what was going on due to Rhodes' having complete control of the show and that Rhodes "now has to make her decisions as to what she must do with her career".

[citation needed] On April 23, 2009, Premiere Radio Networks, a subsidiary of Clear Channel Communications, announced the addition of Randi Rhodes to their syndicated lineup with her show returning to airways across the country May 11, 2009.

[28] Her eponymous program, The Randi Rhodes Show, aired live Monday through Friday from 3pm to 6pm Eastern Time.

Now retired, he is a board member of Faith in America, a group working to end harm to LGBT youth caused by religious teachings.