Ronald Reagan’s Son, Conservative Commentator Michael Reagan, Dies at 80

Michael Reagan, President Ronald Reagan’s elder son, has died. He was 80.

The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute announced in an X post on Tuesday, Jan. 6, that the conservative commentator had died on Sunday, Jan. 4, in Los Angeles. His cause of death was not shared.

The post recognized Michael as “a steadfast guardian of his father’s legacy.”

“Michael Reagan lived a life shaped by conviction, purpose, and an abiding devotion to President Reagan’s ideals,” the X post read.

“Michael was and will always remain a beloved husband, father, and grandpa,” his family said in a statement obtained by Fox News. “Our hearts are deeply broken as we grieve the loss of a man who meant so much to all who knew and loved him.”

Michael was one of the late president’s five children. 

He was born in March 1945 to Irene Flaugher and John Bourgholtzer, per The Courier-Journal. Days later, Reagan and his then-wife, Oscar-winning Jane Wyman, adopted him.

The couple also shared daughters Maureen, who was born in 1941 and died in 2001, and Christine, born in 1947, who died one day after her birth. The couple finalized their divorce in 1948. Reagan later married Nancy Reagan in 1952; they welcomed daughter Patti that year and a son, Ron, in 1958.

“Greatest gift Irene Flaugher gave me was life. She gave me a chance at life,” Michael told KTLA in 2008. “Greatest gift Jane Wyman and Ronald Reagan gave me, is really nurturing that life.”

Michael attended Arizona State University and later attended Los Angeles Valley College. He would go on to follow his parents’ footsteps in the entertainment industry, appearing in a handful of TV shows and movies, including working alongside his mother in Falcon Crest.

After his acting career, he created his syndicated radio show, The Michael Reagan Show. He later authored several books, including On the Outside Looking In, Twice Adopted and Lessons My Father Taught Me.

President Reagan celebrated his son’s book in his own book, An American Life: “When I read his book, I had even more of a fatherly pride in Mike than I had had before…. he was happy and at peace with himself,” he wrote per the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute.

Michael married his first wife, Pamela Gail Putnam, in 1971, and they divorced the following year. He then married Colleen Sterns and welcomed his son, Cameron, now 48, and his daughter, Ashley, now 43.

Throughout his lifetime, Michael would serve as the chair of the Reagan Legacy Foundation, established for the “advancing the causes President Reagan held dear and memorializing the accomplishments of his presidency,” according to the organization’s website.

He would also work as a commentator for the conservative television network Newsmax.

In addition to his political activism, Michael was involved with several charities, including serving as chair of the John Douglas French Alzheimer’s Foundation board. His father died from complications of Alzheimer’s disease in June 2004.