Howard Stern is at odds with Bill Maher after he criticized the radio host’s marriage to Beth Stern.
“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?” Maher, 67, said on the Monday, September 18, episode of his “Club Random” podcast, noting he didn’t want to start any problems with Howard, 69. “Could we just not gush about the person while the other person can still hear it?”
Before tying the knot with Beth, 51, in 2008, Howard was married to Alison Berns from 1978 to 2001. The exes share three daughters: Emily Beth, 40, Debra Jennifer, 37 and Ashley Jade, 30. After hearing Maher’s remarks, Howard slammed the comedian.
“What a sexist thing to say! Like, what a convoluted, nutty thing to say,” Howard said on the Tuesday, September 19, episode of Sirius XM’s The Howard Stern Show. “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 continued to go off. “He ought to shut his mouth!” Stern said. “I mean, I don’t think I come on the air every day and say, ‘I love my wife.’ But I thought it was a pretty positive message, to — especially with my audience — to say to guys: ‘Instead of like ragging on our wives, how about talking about that we appreciate them and love them?’”
Howard claimed he attempted to get in contact with Maher to talk out the issue but didn’t receive a response.
“I wrote in an email, 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 since you’re, you know.’ But of course, he never wrote me back,” he shared. “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 don’t care, though. He can think what he wants. I think I’m no longer friends with him.”
Maher and Howard have had a rocky friendship over the years. At the start of their careers, the duo did not get along. In 2019, Maher appeared on Howard’s show to officially bury the hatchet live on air. At the time, Howard took responsibility for the tension between the twosome as he prioritized making a good radio show rather than making his guests feel comfortable.
“Back in those days, look, we were both a–holes,” Maher said to Howard at the time. “Isn’t it nice that we’re at this age now? Where we repair relationships.”
