Stern hit back at Maher over recent disparaging remarks the 'Real Time' host made during an episode of his podcast.
Howard Stern is hitting back at Bill Maher over comments the embattled Real Time host made during a recent episode of his Club Random podcast.
Maher's remarks regarding Stern's marriage to wife Beth Sterns led to the veteran radio host declaring that he's cutting any ties to the TV personality, expressing, "I think I’m no longer friends with him."
The feuding stemmed from Maher criticizing Stern for publicly declaring his love for his wife, which Maher said felt like an insult to Stern's first wife, Alison Berns.
"[Howard] goes on about how much he loves his wife, Beth, which he has been doing on the air for, like, 10 years. But we know Howard had this other wife before Beth," Maher said. "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?" Maher, who has never been married, asked rhetorically.
Stern and Berns married in 1978 but wound up getting divorced in 2000. Shortly after, Sterns sparked a romance with his now-wife Beth, whom he went on to marry in 2008.
Stern responded strongly, saying that Maher "ought to shut his mouth."
"What a sexist thing to say!" Stern exclaimed. "Like, what a convoluted, nutty thing to say."
"[He's] assuming that he knows something about my first marriage," Stern continued. "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."
The longtime radio host explained that he actually expresses his love for his wife frequently because it felt to him like a positive message to get out to the world.
"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?'" Stern said.
"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'... But of course, he never wrote me back," he said. "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, [but] zero response."
"I don't care, though. He can think what he wants," Stern concluded.
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