Pioneering sex therapist Dr Ruth Westheimer dies aged 96

Dr. Ruth discusses "Ask Dr Ruth" during the Q&A section of the screening at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival at Spring Studio in New York City. Photo / Getty Images

Pioneering sex therapist Dr Ruth Westheimer has died aged 96.

The 4ft 7in tall straight-talker, best known as Dr Ruth and who is globally renowned for revolutionising the way the world talked about sex and sexuality while driving the ‘sexpert’ industry – despite saying she was a “square” – died peacefully at home in Manhattan, New York City, while clutching her family’s hands, her publicist said on Saturday.

Dr Ruth’s representative Pierre Lehu added in a statement to Page Six: “She died peacefully, at home, holding the hands of her son and daughter.”

In a separate comment to People, Pierre added: “It was as peacefully as she could possibly go. She was 96.

“It’s amazing, there was stuff still going on in her life and someone wants to make a biopic about her.”

No cause of death has yet been announced.

German-American Ruth – who married three times and had two children – was born Karola Ruth Seigel on 4 June, 1928, in Wiesenfeld, Germany.

Aged 10 she was sent to Switzerland to escape World War II and was the sole survivor of her family, who were all wiped out in the Holocaust.

As a teen, she moved to Palestine and joined the Haganah - the armed wing of the Israeli independence movement - where she was trained as a sniper, although she said she never shot anyone.

Her first husband was an Israeli soldier and she moved to Paris with him in 1950, where she studied psychology at the Sorbonne.

The couple split five years after the move and she set up home in the US with her second husband, with whom she had daughter Miriam.

They also split and she married for the third and final time to Manfred Westheimer.

The pair had son Joel and stayed together for 36 years until Westheimer was killed by heart failure in 1997.

Dr Ruth in New York in 2019. (Photo by Roy Rochlin/Getty Images for Tribeca Film Festival)

Ruth obtained her doctorate from Columbia University and taught sex education at Lehman College in the Bronx, New York, and to women at Planned Parenthood.

While supporting safe sex, Ruth’s mission was to get people to openly discuss sex and sexuality.

She said in 2022 about how it was at odds with her character: “I still hold old-fashioned values and I’m a bit of a square.

“Sex is a private art and a private matter. But still, it is a subject we must talk about.”

Ruth’s media career exploded in 1980 when she started hosting the call-in radio show Sexually Speaking, and by 1983 it was one of the US’ top-rated programmes on the airwaves.

Dr Ruth in 2009. Photo / GrapedApe

By 1984 she had her own TV programme – the world-renowned Dr Ruth Show, which featured the host’s blunt and witty advice on sex.

She went on to rack up appearances on the US’ most popular shows including The Howard Stern Radio Show, The Tonight Show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show and The Dr Oz Show.

Her estimated net worth of at least $3 million was boosted by her string of best-selling books including Sex for Dummies, All in a Lifetime and Musically Speaking: A Life through Song.

Ruth told Page Six on her 94th birthday she was on a mission to help lonely people through the Covid pandemic, declaring: “I would like to be the ambassador for the state of New York combating loneliness – I want to give good advice to people who are lonely.”