Bill Maher, Donald Trump and more
This man is know to be stern with words.
Howard Stern has made a name for himself by always speaking his mind and never shying away from a feud.
Most recently the SiriusXM radio titan got more than heated when he reacted to a fan on YouTube who confessed that although he liked the “Howard Stern Show,” he wasn’t good anymore because the 69-year-old is “woke.”
“I hear that a lot that I’m not good anymore because I’m woke,” said Stern according to a report by the news site Mediaite.
“By the way, I kind of take that as a compliment, that I’m woke,” he said. “I’ll tell you how I feel about it. To me the opposite of woke, is being asleep.”
“And if woke means I can’t get behind Trump, which is what I think it means, or that I support people who want to be transgender or I’m for the vaccine, dude, call me woke as you f—— want,” Stern said in the rant.
“I am woke, motherf—–, and I love it. I want to be awake. I want to read legitimate news sources. Here’s how woke I am: I believe the election was not rigged,” Stern said of the 2020 presidential election. “I am woke. I think that’s a compliment.”
And it seems, when he’s not clapping back at his fans, nothing keeps Stern more awake at night than stroking the flames of his countless celebrity feuds.
Throughout his career, the shock jock has gone head to head with the likes of David Letterman, Donald Trump, Lena Dunham and more.
Here’s a list of the celebrities the King of all Media wouldn’t dare let in his castle.
David Letterman
Stern and David Letterman were once close friends. They worked in the same building and the radio host even appeared on “Late Night.”
“In those days, Howard was ‘shock jock’ Howard and I was always afraid of Howard because I didn’t want Howard to say unpleasant things about me,” Letterman explained on an episode of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”
Just as Letterman feared, their relationship changed when Stern started dissing Letterman and his wife Regina Lasko.
“I kept thinking to myself, he must not have any feelings of his own,” Letterman said. “He’d say hurtful things and the more hurtful things he’d say the greater his audience would become. I thought, ‘I’m in the wrong business.’”
The two have since repaired their bond and Stern revisited the feud with Letterman on the Netflix series “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction.” .
“I was just a young man full of rage and I was angry. I was angry with you, that you were on television, that you had an audience. There was no rhyme or reason to it,” Stern told Letterman. “I could not love anyone. I couldn’t respect anyone. I just thought this was who I was.”
“Words had no meaning to me. Words didn’t hurt,” he explained. “Of course, they hurt me if somebody says something bad, but as far as I was concerned, ‘Oh, everything’s a joke. Words don’t mean anything. I had betrayed your trust and I was ashamed. The reality was I loved you and I really felt strongly about you.”
Wendy Williams
Wendy Williams started this feud on her talk show while discussing Stern’s book “Howard Stern Comes Again.”
“Howard is so Hollywood right now. And Howard, I love you, but since you’ve gone Hollywood, everything you say is so predictable,” she said on “The Wendy Williams Show” back in 2019. “Every story is going to be about, ‘Oh, I love this one, and then we went on their yacht.’ He’s a Hollywood insider, which sucks.”
“You started like me, being of the people. But at some point you sat behind the microphone for too long and now you are the people,” Williams added. “It hurts.”
Stern quickly responded and he clearly had no love for Williams.
“Jealous b–ch. … You are nobody to me,” Stern said on hs radio show. “You’ll never be me, Wendy. You’ll never be me. You can pretend to be me, you can pretend to be like me, but you’re not. You don’t have my wit and you don’t have my talent. … You couldn’t have that career. You’re a fly.”
“What evidence do you have that I’m Hollywood, honey?” he said. “I grew up a scumbag and I’m still treated like a scumbag. … What because I found success now I’m ‘Hollywood?’ What cause I know Jimmy Kimmel? Who am I hanging out with? She doesn’t know who I’m hanging out with. She doesn’t know what I do in this world. She doesn’t know who I’m f—ing with.”
“All she talks on that show is about Hollywood,” Stern alleged. “That’s as Hollywood as you get. If anyone in Hollywood called her to hang out, she’d [be there] in two seconds. All of that is a projection!”
Stern went attempting to set the record straight, “Here’s my weekend: I go home, I write stuff for this show, I wrote stuff for my book, and then I stare at the wall waiting for the next show,” he said.
“I work my ass off on this show, day in and day out, to make sure that it’s good,” Stern continued. “Just shut up. Keep your opinion to yourself about me. I have struggled my entire life through thick and thin to actually get out there and do something that actually means something to people. That’s such an insult to me.”
The two briefly reportedly buried the hatchet for eight months then Stern threw another diss at William for being inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 2011, one year before he was.
“No offense to Wendy Williams, but they put Wendy Williams in before me,” Stern said.
Williams responded on her show saying, “Now you looky here Howard, I’m tired of fighting with you, man. Why do you always have to fight with me? Because you think I’m the low-lying fruit? Why? … Why are you and I always fighting? I wasn’t fighting with you, I’m minding my own business, trying to watch The Bachelor,” she joked.
“Don’t hate on me because I got in before you,” Williams said. “I know the only reason I got in is that I had a new talk show. I went from radio, successful, to TV with my own show. You haven’t done that. …. Howard, all I am saying is, keep your hundreds of thousands of dollars, your beautiful wife Beth, all of those animals that you will rescue and be happy, man. And stop hating on me. Because I don’t hate you!”
Donald Trump
Stern has been very public about his disdain about Donald Trump when the real estate mogul became the 45th President of the United States.
“I personally wish that he had never run. I told him that,” Stern explained on his show. “Because I actually think this is something that is going to be very detrimental to his mental health, too. Because he wants to be liked, he wants to be loved, he wants people to cheer for him. I don’t think this is going to be a healthy experience for him.”
In 2022, he took it a step further slamming Trump supporters.
“I mean, my God in heaven, I feel like I’m in a nation of nincompoops. I’m hoping there is still some more brilliant, bright, vibrant people who love this country,’ he said on the Howard Stern Show.
“I don’t hate Donald,” he added on his Sirius XM Radio show. “I hate you for voting for him, for not having intelligence. For not being able to see what’s going on with the coronavirus, for not being able to see what the Justice Department is doing. I hate you, I don’t want you here.”
“The people who are voting for Trump for the most part… he wouldn’t even let them in a f–king hotel,” said Stern concluded, adding that Trump would be “disgusted by them.”
“Go to Mar-a-Lago, see if there’s any people who look like you.”
Lena Dunham
Stern earned the wrath of Lena Dunham back in 2013 when he slammed her on his Sirius XM show, calling her “a little fat girl who looks like Jonah Hill.”
At the time, Dunham was the star of the hit HBO series “Girls,” which she also directed, wrote and executively produced. Stern was not a fan and also complained that she spent too much time on screen naked. “[She] “keeps taking her clothes off, and it kinda feels like a rape. … I don’t want to see that.”
Dunham called in to Stern’s radio show demanding a public apology.
“I’m not that fat, Howard,” she said while on the air. “I don’t mean to take major issue with you about this. I’m not super thin, but I’m thin for, like, Detroit.”
Stern eventually did issue that apology to Dunham, a day after she won the Golden Globe for best actress in a comedy series and the show won best comedy series.
“I felt bad, because I really do love the show “Girls” and enjoy it, and I admire the girl who writes it,” he said. “So anyway, I said to [producer Gary Dell’Abate], ‘Would you please contact Lena Dunham and tell her that I would like to explain myself on the air and apologize to her, because I do love the show, and it makes me feel bad that she is getting the impression that I somehow think she’s just a talentless little fat chick.’”
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle
Stern was not a fan of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s 2022 Netflix documentary “Harry & Meghan.”
“It’s been painful,” Stern said on his Sirius XM show of watching the series. “I don’t — I wouldn’t stay with it, but my wife wants to watch it, so, you know, we have shows we watch, but they come off like such whiny bitches. I gotta tell you man, I just don’t get it.”
“I get Prince Harry being pissed off at the monarchy for his mother,” Stern continued. “They treated her like shit…I feel bad for Prince Harry losing his mother and all that. So you got my empathy there. But Jesus Christ, when those two start whining about ‘wah wah wah, and they don’t like me’ and she wants to be beloved in this country…it’s just very weird to watch two people who keep screaming, ‘We wanted our privacy, we wanted the press to leave us alone.’ And then what is their special that they put out on Netflix — showing you them and their kids and their life. It’s like the Kardashians except boring. You know what I mean?”
Stern ended his rant predicting that the couple will eventually break up.
“I think he’s eventually not gonna dig her,” he said. “I’m telling you.”
Simon Cowell
Stern’s dislike for Simon Cowell may have started the former “American Idol” replaced Stern as a judge on “America’s Got Talent.”
Four years later when Gabrielle Union abruptly left the show in 2019 claiming the work environment for her as a judge was toxic, Stern claimed Cowell was to blame.
“How is it that Simon Cowell has orchestrated this?” Stern said on his radio show. “He has set it up that the men stay, no matter how ugly they are, no matter how old they are, no matter how fat they are, no matter how talentless they are.”
Stern also pointed out that while Heidi Klum, Tyra Banks and Mel B were let go, Mandel and Cowell stayed.
“What he manages to do on all his shows is he constantly replaces the hot chicks with hotter chicks and younger chicks,” Stern said. “Which is so obvious.”
Kathie Lee Gifford
On an episode of the “Today” show, then host Gifford tried to explain her decades-long feud with Stern to Jenna Bush Hager on-air.
“Howard Stern had a feud with me going on 30 years,” she explained. “I never met him. I never listened to his show. He hated my guts for 30 years. Hated my husband, hated my children. Hated everything I stood for,” Gifford explained to Jenna Bush Hager on-air.
“And one day, right here, I was up in the makeup room and all of a sudden he’s here to announce ‘America’s Got Talent.’ I just feel the Lord saying very clearly to me, ‘Go down and say hello to Howard,’ ” Gifford recalled. “I’m standing right here, he’s 6’ 6” and I’m 5’ 5” with flat shoes and I go, ‘Howard, Howard, I’m Kathie Lee. I thought it was time I say hello. I want to wish you the very best with your show.’ And I left. He was really flabbergasted.”
After the encounter, Stern called Gifford to apologize.
“There’s a message from him, a voicemail. ‘I was blown away and will you call me?’ ” she recalled. “He calls again during dinner, we had a half-hour conversation. ‘Will you forgive me, Kathie, please? I’m doing some hard work on my life. I know I hurt you. I’m so sorry and I need to ask you to forgive me.’ ”
Gifford then explained that she decided to turn the other cheek saying, “First of all, Howard, I’m so happy for you. You’re doing the work you need to do. That’s important for you to do,” she revealed. “And you need to know I forgave you 30 years ago, and I’ve been praying for you every single day since, and I still do.”
Jon Bon Jovi
Jon Bon Jovi and Stern were best buddies. In 1986 while Stern was a morning disc jockey at K-Rock (otherwise known as New York’s WXRK-FM), he championed the “Livin’ on a Prayer’ singer. But Stern got jealous when Bon Jovi started making appearances on other radio stations.
“It started very innocently when I got pissed at Bon Jovi for going on radio stations like [local competitors] Z-100 and WNEW to promote their new album yet shunning my show,” Stern recalled. “I was mad because we were the only show to promote Bon Jovi when they were nobodies. I had what I thought was a good relationship with three guys in the band — Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora and David Bryan.”
Stern mentioned the feud again in 1993 his first book “Private Parts”
“He gave me some lame excuse that the record company stopped him because the other stations threatened not to play the record if he came on with me,” he wrote. “I knew this was bulls–t, and I teased him for kowtowing to the record execs. I renamed him Jon Bon Phony. Jon sounded really contrite and offered to come over to my house, wash the car and babysit my kids for restitution.”
Eventually the two made up and in 2018, Stern inducted him into the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame.
Adam Sandler
Stern thought he made an enemy of Adam Sandler because he heavily criticized “The Wedding Singer” star’s films.
“I know Adam Sandler won’t come on the show because I’ve, in the past, criticized his movies,” Stern explained on his show. “I guess that’s the reason, but am I the only one criticizing the content in his movies?”
But in 2015 Sandler surprised Stern and indeed appeared on his SiriusXM show and revealed he was always a fan of the shock jock.
“When I was at NYU freshman year, I loved you,” said Sandler. “That’s why it was weird when you used to slam me. It would break my heart because I loved you growing up.”
Sandler continued explaining that Stern’s critiques hurt more than just him.
“The bad reviews that I get on everything I do, that part pisses me off because I ask my f‑‑king friends to be in it, and to ask them to be in this stuff, and I’m promising them, ‘I think it’s good.’ And then I do screenings for an audience and it all works, and I’ll call them up after and say, ‘Hey, that one thing you said really did great,’ and then that Friday, every Friday, literally every one of my movies is destroyed,” he lamented. “Everything, the reviews, they destroy them so much that I’m just like, ‘I can’t wait for my friends to see the movie and not read that s‑‑t and be affected by it.’“
In response, Stern quickly issued an apology.
“I always felt bad about all the years we didn’t speak,” he said. “I really did because I was a total f‑‑king a‑‑hole.”
Bill Maher
Stern declared that he was “no longer friends with” Bill Maher in 2023 after the HBO “Real Time” host made a snark remark about Stern’s penchant for “gushing” about his second wife on air. Stern was married to Alison Berns from 1978 until 2008. He got remarried in 2008 to Beth Ostrosky Stern.
“[Howard Stern] goes on about how much he loves his wife, Beth, which he has been doing on the air for, like, 10 years,” Maher said on an episode of his “Club Random” podcast, during which he interviewed Julian Lennon. “We know Howard had this other wife before Beth, so he’s trying to make me seem like I’m the slightly immoral one because I won’t settle down and all I could think of is how does this gushing about the second wife, how does that make the first wife feel? Could we just not gush about the person while the other person can still hear it?”
True to form, Stern addressed Maher’s comments on his Sirius XM radio show.
“He took a big shot at me,” Stern said. “Basically, he says, ‘Howard Stern always gets on the radio and says he loves his wife.’ I’ve never been criticized for this. He goes, ‘Haven’t we had enough of that? What about his first wife? I feel really bad for her.’”
“What a sexist thing to say. What a convoluted, nutty thing to say,” Stern continued. “He says it must hurt [Berns’] feelings that I’m in love with a different woman. It’s assuming that he knows something about my first marriage. That of course the man must be leaving the woman and the woman must be devastated and be sitting around pining away for her famous man.”
“He ought to shut his mouth! I mean, I don’t think I come on the air every day and say I love my wife,” Stern added. “But I thought it was a pretty positive message, especially with my audience, to say to guys, ‘Instead of ragging on our wives, how about talking how we appreciate and love them?’”
Stern alleges he wrote an email to Maher regarding the feud “but of course [Maher] never wrote me back.”
“I said, ‘Why don’t you give me a phone call? Why don’t you tell me what you think about my life and my marriage?’” Stern explained of the email he wrote. “I just wanted to see how brave he was. If he was brave enough to call me and actually get on the phone with me — and zero response. I think I’m no longer friends with him.”
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