Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.

My name is Mark Zedio, and on behalf of SiriusXM, I want to thank you so much for coming out to Stephen Talkhouse for a very special, very intimate episode of Smartless.

Here we go. Here we go. We go. That's up.

Smartless. Smartless.

Smartless. Smartless. Smartless.

You guys. Hi, everybody. Hi. Welcome.

Thank you for being here. You guys aren't really fans. You're friends of ours. That's very nice of you to show up. Thank you, everybody. Drive all the way out here to Long Island.

Pay nothing.

Really nice.

Pay nothing.

Right? The first- Sit here and be like, All right, entertain us.

We're very excited to be doing… We're going to do four live shows every year. We're going to do the-We're open to less, Scott, but that's fine. We do the regular podcast on the computer thing, right? What do you watch it? You're listening to it on, whatever it is. Then we're going to do four live. This is our first one. Very excited about it. On top of that, we've got our White Whale. People would ask me, Who have you not interviewed that you wanted Howard Stern, because he doesn't do this, and he's the man. He is the man.

No, we feel very blessed that he... We'll get into that in a second. Is that your intro? No.

I don't have an intro. Sean's got an intro. Look at the cards.

I wrote a bunch of stuff.

Hang on, I do want to say something.

I'm like Fanning. Who's the little Dakota Fanning when she was a little girl? She was really overprepared in the best way. I did Cat in the Hat with her. Go on.

We got something to trim already.

The The audience is riveted by that story. Fucking what? Dakota Fanning?

Well, she was really smart and prepared. I love that about her.

But everybody here knows who our guest is going to be, so there are not a lot of surprises. There is one surprise that we do have today, just to get everybody warmed up, to get us warmed up a little bit. Something, Sean, you don't know about. Don't worry, it's not your We still can't find him. It's so fun because he left.

Top speed.

The tears are still wet. I would tell you, he came to the last show of Good Night Oscar in Chicago.

Yeah. Did he ever tell you that? This is a sad story. I don't know if this we want to- But anyway, we can get back to that again.

Keep going. That's a true story.

He did, right?

He came to the last show. I didn't even know he was there.

Did he go backstage? No. No.

It was wild. Go ahead.

Did he have notes?

Yes. Yes, he emailed them to me.

That is pretty weird.

Wait, did you see him?

I didn't. My sister- Tracy? Yes, that's correct. He e-mailed my... Sorry, he posted on Facebook that he went to the last show, and that's all he wrote. My sister, to bait him like, Don't you want to say something about your son that you haven't seen in 75 years? He said- You look great.

Yeah, 75?

He just wrote back, Oscar Levant, just like I remembered him. That was it. Isn't that wow? Anyway.

How long have you not seen him? Forty years? He's in the theater with you. You just started something. He didn't stick around to say, No. Isn't that weird?

What a treat. Then wait. Then, check this out, two gay guys came up to Scotty in the audience because Scottie was there, and they go, Are you Scottie?

That's not the whole story?

No.

Okay.

They came up to Scottie and they said, I just want to let you know we live next door to Sean's dad, and I understand they don't see eye to eye.

Was that a shot at your mom? For those of you who don't know, Sean's mom famously has one fake eye. Yes.

Hat, hat, hat, hat.

Because, hilarious, she died.

Sean should be an ax murderer, right? I mean, but he-Let's see how this goes.

He's the nicest guy. He's the kindest. We love him.

We all have. We all have skeletons. Go ahead.

We all have one-eye parents.

Of one-eye parents.

We do have one surprise tonight, just so, just try to bring us out of the hole of Sean's upbringing. I've asked the guy to come here tonight just to do a little something before we get going. Are you serious? I swear to God. Yeah, he's an Emmy winner. He's a finalist on America's Got Talent. He's been on the Jimmy Fallon program, amongst others. Is that what it's called, the program? It's called the Jimmy Fallon program. That's what the producers tell I don't know. There he is. Jimmy, thank you, Jimmy. Please don't stand up. No, please don't sit. Mr. Fallon. I beg you to sit down.

Thank you to sit down. Fucking love it.

God, we saw the Olympics.

It wasn't an intro, Jimmy.

We get it. You're on NBC. You own Wayfarers.

By the way, Jimmy, on all serio, you're great in Jurassic World. I thought that was great.

Down again.

Again, down. But he's done so many things. No, he's a big. No, she's not here, man. She didn't make it. She's working on her stuff. He's one of the world's most sought-after mentalist. He's working with clients ranging from A-list celebrities, heads of state, Fortune 500 companies. Guys, please welcome the amazing O's Perlman. Just to kick us off. Do a little something special for us. What?

I didn't know.

Wait. Not Dakota fanning, unfortunately. I know.

Wait a minute. This is a surprise to Sean. Sean knows nothing about it.

He was waiting for it to be his dad. I'm sorry, Sean.

Wait, can I tell you something? Tell me. He sends me clips of you all the time.

That's what Will told me.

I'm obsessed. I think this is amazing.

Let's see what I've got. Sean legit doesn't You're not aware of anything about this.

Sean has no idea.

This is wild.

Will, you have my phone number, right? Yeah. And my email address?

Yeah, I got it all.

I don't like clips of things.

Do you know who this is? You're too grouchy.

He include me into it. It's our smart list on Moose Boosh today, right? Yeah.

Wait, this is so cool. This is so cool.

Here's what I do, Jason. Supposedly, I read minds, but if I'm going to know how people think, right? And you know what they're thinking at the same time. Here's Will's skill. Everybody, where are my smart list fans in the room? Come on. Will notoriously knows dates, years, behind, everything. You can tell him June, 2006, he knows what he's wearing. Jason can't remember what he had for breakfast today. Am I right? That's right. Sean Webby, award winner, best host.

I thought you were going to say Sean ate Jason's breakfast.

That might have been. Here's what I want you to do. I'm putting tasks. Putting tasks out there. You're going back in time thinking of somebody that these guys would not know, somebody from your past that they would not... You know what, Jason? Go back in time. Think of the first girl you ever had a big crush on. Think to how old you were at the time.

I got it.

Tell them, because if I'm listening to this on my podcast right now, I'm saying this is set up, this is fake. Before today and me asking you to think of her, has it been days, months, or years since this person popped in your mind?

Years.

Years? Yeah. They didn't even know it was going to the show. Count the number of letters in her first name just to yourself. No, don't use your fingers. Jason, I can see your fingers.

Okay, you're yelling at me. I'm fucking nervous that you're going to guess it, and I'm going to be all freaked out. This is coming How did you find out at your time, Howard.

Five letters. Was it five letters? Yes. I watched your eyes. Okay. He has not thought of this person in years. This is not set up, because if it was, it'd be going better. Tell For us all, for everybody listening, I have written down, Everybody in the room, don't say the name, but if you can see what I wrote down clear as day, everybody in the room, say, Yeah.

Yeah.

Close your eyes for me, Jason. Close your eyes.

But if you get this, you're going to be in my life the rest of my life.

That is what I do.

I'm never going to let you go.

Like a splinter that doesn't leave.

Well, clearly, you let her go, but go ahead.

You haven't thought of her in years. I wrote it down. Everybody in the room has seen it. How old were you at the time, Jason? Fourteen. Fourteen. Tell us, what was this young lady's name?

Paula.

I wrote down Paula, 14. For those who can't see Jason's face, he is in shock. Yeah.

Why aren't you a trillionaire on Wall Street?

It's my former job.

Will, you thought something- You're wasting this at Steven Talkhouse.

I'm monetizing. We're in the Hamptons, Jason. Trust me, I'm monetizing. Will, you're back in time. You're thinking of somebody. Jason's shook up, by the way. I wish they could see his face and not just hear the text of his voice.

That's the most surprising his face gets, by the way. What do you think your face is doing right now? Smiling?

It's very good when you smile.

Sean, how about this? All right. You read his mind. You were so confident with Jason, and then you had no idea. He just sees cookies. Is there any way in the world, Will, that Sean knows who popped in your head when I asked you to think of somebody from your past?

No.

Okay. Take a pad of paper.

Yeah.

Sean, here's the game plan. Okay, I'm so scared. I need you to act.

Good luck.

Sean, look at my hands, and can you tell everybody listening in? I'm going to pretend in a moment I have a crystal ball on my hand. Do I actually have anything in my hands? Zero, nothing. Everyone in the audience, is there anything in my hands? No. Sean will swear up and down that he saw a crystal ball appear in my hands, and in it, the name of your friend as a kid or whoever this person is. Have you written down a name?

I have.

Can anybody see it right now other than you?

I don't think so.

Sean, look into Will's soul and tell him-It's good luck. What name did you see in that crystal ball? Tell him, what? Before I walked in here, we've spoken a word in our life, Sean. Never. Tell him who's he thinking of. Say it. Scott.

You're fucking what?

Turn around, show the audience. Fucking what?

I can't hear you in this room. Are we seeing the same show?

How is that possible? How is that possible?

Holy shit. That is unbelievable.

Thank you very much for having me, guys. Huge fan.

Incredible. Guys, how do you introduce a man who needs no introduction because he's one of the most famous people on the planet, plus he's on the poster outside. He's the king of all media, the interviewer of all interviewers, the winner of best hair in America, four years in a row. He's a great artist, a great painter.

More sincere.

Yeah, no, I lost my thing. He is incredible. He's the most amazing person. Now, his home for 20 years has been Sirius XM, which is now ours, which makes us roomies. It's the most incredible icon of all time, Howard Stern.

Ever.

Yes.

Oh, man.

You know, all my years in radio, nothing works better on radio than magic.

Yeah, sure.

You guys are on to something.

That's a great note.

I told you, Arnett, not a good idea. I don't want to come off like an expert. I've only been doing this for 50 years.

You've also made Howard the second guest. When's the last time you weren't the lead guest?

I know. I remember having amazing Crescan on, and the audience was as I described everything that was going on in the room. The play-by-play was unbelievable. He made a table lift, and I go, If you were here now, you'd see a table lifting off the ground. People were like, No wonder this is such a great radio. First of all, welcome to SiriusXM, the glorious world of SiriusXM. I'm a huge fan of the company, so welcome. I don't even know how long I've been with SiriusXM.

Since it started, you started it.

When I started, we had 200,000 subscribers, and I remember walking around in, I don't even know where I was, somewhere in Manhattan, handing out radios for free, hoping that someone would take one. It was a harrowing experience leaving Terrestrial Radio and coming to Sirius, but it was the best decision I ever made.

You weren't allowed to talk about it, too, right? At the very end there, when you're on Terrestrial Radio, I remember that.

It was a very strange time in my career. I was on regular radio, and I somehow convinced them that it would be okay if I talked about the fact that I was leaving regular radio and going to satellite radio. Then they told me, okay. They said, Don't mention Sirius Radio. Just call it something else. We called What you did for it, though, because we had all heard that satellite radio was coming, and I was a little circumspect. Hold on, sir. Which one are you? You're Jason. I'm Jason. That's Jason.

That's Jason. I was like, Well, I don't know if I want... I got to get a different radio for that. But when you went to satellite, I was like, Oh, it's okay now. When Fincher went to Netflix, it was like, Oh.

You do forget because things move rather rapidly. But it was a very strange time because there was an effort by regular radio to say, What a failure I would be. They were putting out that anyone who went to satellite radio, your career would be over, you would disappear forever. There was this big campaign to discredit satellite radio. But I knew deep in my heart that satellite radio would be successful. Now I look around, everybody's got a fucking microphone in their house. Everybody's on the radio. You three.

I know, it's ridiculous.

You want to hear the most aggravating thing.

But, Howard, I do love you guys.

But a couple of things.

Jason and I, the only person I didn't know was Sean.

It's nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you. I do want to ask you about your classical piano.

All right. I want to ask you about your guitar.

Yes, I'm most impressed with your classical piano.

You guys will get some time after the interview.

But here's the thing I want to tell you that annoying. Can I tell you this? Yeah. Jason was over my house, and I have mad respect for Jason. I think he's a fabulous actor. Incredible. One of the best. Wonderful guy. He's overcome a million-a-a-grate time for you to call me Justin. Can you hear the problems he had?

He said a lot of problems.

A lot of fucking problems. A lot.

And he still has a bunch.

Yeah, he's got a lot of problems. Look at him. We could go on all day. But I'm talking to Jason, and I'm feeling very good about my own career and everything. Jason goes, You know, man, it's crazy. We started this thing out of our basement, a radio show. I'm like, Oh, here we go. Cool. He goes, Yeah, we started a thing, and it was just the three of us sitting around and we talk and we just crack each other up and everything. I don't know what's going to happen with it, man. But they're telling me it's the biggest thing ever.

Shit, I didn't say that.

Oh, No way. Oh, yeah, you did. I go, Oh, this is great. Again, I spent my life begging people to put me on the radio. It was rarefied air. If you even were allowed on the... You had to work on your voice, this and that. You had to work on the content. You had to make sure you get people. He's clowning around. Listen, it's over.

What can I say?

I know, but you talk about- You hide your bitterness really well.

I'm so bitter.

You talk about perfecting your craft. How did you first meet the Wackpack?

Oh, that's an excellent question. It is.

I want to know because you did. You found the craziest group of people available and put them together. How did that come together, the Wackpack?

Listen, when I was on the radio, and it was brutal. In order to get an audience and to maintain an audience, every 15 minutes, they take the ratings in radio. It isn't like this, where you go, You know what? We have a lot of people listening. It could be three people listening to this. Nobody knows, nobody cares. But you're on the radio, and every 15 minutes, they take ratings. What are you going to do to hold people's attention?

But you found all these people like this.

But look, I found people that I was interested in. I'll never forget the day. I was on the radio and I took a little bathroom break, and I walked by my green room. The light went up. I'm looking at the room, and there he is, Beatlejuice. Beatlejuice. Jason, you ever hear my show?

In high school, I listened to it a lot.

There was a guy named Beatlejuice who's very popular, even to this day on the internet.

It's insanely popular.

Right. I said, This guy's a star. He's going to be fantastic.

He's quiet, so they don't hear it.

This guy's going to be a star.

This guy's going to be a star. Sure enough, he was. No, I was always looking for interesting people.

I have a question about Early on, where did you get the balls to not give a shit about the consequences of what you were saying and what you were doing on air? Where do you get that from? Because do you think you would have that now if you started your career now with the same personality since we live in cancel culture?

Go ahead. I believe I was technically insane.

I can't even-Self-sabotage?

You had this level of indifference?

No, not self-sabotage. Here's the In my family, words meant nothing. My mother would say, Actions only mean anything. I guess I took her literally.

Yeah. Howard, what would you consider would be the turning point in your career where you broke through? Because, again, you started, you had all these... You keyed into this thing with odd characters on your show. But what was the turning point where you felt like you broke through to a bigger audience?

I had a miserable failure in Detroit. I got hired to be the morning man at WWW in Detroit, which are the worst call letters for a radio station. I get on there and go, WWW, Detroit, W-4. I don't know what I'm doing. I was hired to be the morning man. I had had some success in Hartford. Not a huge success, but success. I got hired in Detroit, and there was a radio consultant who said to me, Do not go to Detroit. There are four rock stations, and out of the four, the one that they want to hire you at, dead last. Nobody even... I would go to parties and people would say, What do you do for a living? I'd say, Oh, I'm the morning guy in W4. They go, Oh, is that station still on the air? Nobody listened to this thing.

W4 was a short version of WWW.

W4, Detroit's W4, the worst station. I went on the radio in Detroit. It was a tremendous failure, and I said, What am I doing wrong? I sat with it and I thought, I've got to really just, I guess lose all inhibition and admit to everything and just see where that goes. When I went to Washington, DC- You hit fuck it.

It was like it was not going great, and you was like, Might as well throw it all against the wall.

But I have to give the credit to also Robin Quivers. I met her in Washington, and she was phenomenal. The chemistry was great. A program director put us together, and I went on the air with her, and I started to become very confessional, and people respond. We shot up to number one in a record amount of time.

Because it was real and honest.

That was the moment when you started getting really real about your own life, that started to change it. Yes. Did you notice being real about your life? Because so much anybody who's listened to this show knows that you talk about what's going on in your life, what you did on the weekend, new haircut, new clothes, whatever.

Let's wait a second. I was masturbating at least three times a day and talking about it.

I was trying to like, my kids are here.

I'm not sorry. I'm not sure there's been a new haircut.

How many do you have exactly?

I mean, we're looking into it, but the The point is-We got to find out. The point is- Here's Jimmy found. You talked about so much about your personal life. Was there a point where talking about your personal life hurt your relationship? I don't mean necessarily even romantic. I mean, hurt relationships because people were nervous about talking to you at a party?

Well, it hurt everything. It hurt my... But I didn't care. All I cared about was my job, keeping that job, and getting audience and ratings. That is a disaster.

But you wave at somebody on the street and go like, Hey, and they're like, Fuck, man, I don't want to say hi to them because I'm going to end up on the show tomorrow.

Yes. I mean, people thought... Not only that, I went through a very strange period in time. I don't want to get all heavy about this because everyone knows the show is not heavy. No, I'm not going to be. But I don't want to get heavy.

We're going to make you cry before you're out of here.

Okay, well, I'll do that. What it was is that I was very insecure about my career. I wanted this thing to take off in the worst way. I even had a policy about... I stayed in my home after I did my show. I never went out. I was insane. I didn't want to meet anyone in show business because I was talking on the air about a lot of people, and I didn't want... I just stayed in my house. I planned the radio show, did it, and went home. The stuff I was doing was so outrageous and so entertaining to the audience that it blew up. I In New York, we had 25 million listeners, and one out of every four cars on the Long Island Expressway was listening to me. It was pretty phenomenal.

But you have no- But I had no life.

Don't applaud. I had no life. But, Howard- Where's Bradley Cooper?

He's so good-looking. But, Howard, that shifted.

If I looked like that, I wouldn't have to go on the radio and say shit.

We will be right back. Now, back to the show.

Howard, that shifted, though, because... It was about, I'm going to say, almost 10 years ago, maybe a little bit more, where you started hanging out with a lot of people and your life changed. You became one of the people that used to talk in a certain way. Not one of the people, but you became friends with a lot of people. I did. You allowed celebrities into your life. You became friends with people like Jason Bateman from TV and film, who we all love.

My dream was to be friends with Jason Bateman. Sure. There's I'll give you one way I'm going to get this guy on my side.

It's our dream, too.

It shifted. I remember back in the... I mean, years ago, you remember, I used to call Chevy Chase's house all the time. I used to drive him crazy. I'm glad.

I hope he's not. I told you I was insane.

I know. But then it changes it because you have to meet those people out in the world.

Well, Chevy ended up coming to my wedding, which is even more important. Come on, is that true? Yes, and got up to make a beautiful speech to myself and my bride, and then stated to the audience that I had given him herpes, which was really weird, but I loved it.

But your audience is bigger today than it's ever been, and you're not doing all of those shocking things. You're doing measured, deep conversations, long-form interviews with very sophisticated people.

Well, because I think any good performer, and you guys are great performers, and you know this, you must evolve. The show I used to say this. Now, Rush Limbaugh, forget the politics. He had a very big following, but it was the same thing every day. You could predict what he was going to say.

Some people like that because it's like comfort and whatever.

It's comfort to them. But for me, as a performer, I felt I want the show to be funny. I also want to be able to interview people. I want it to be broader. I made a conscious decision to shift the show and change it around. To me, was way more exciting because the common thought was, Well, how it'll go to satellite, and now the show is going to be so fucking filthy, and everyone's going to be out of their mind, and the strippers are going to be able to fuck on the air.

Did you miss those constraints?

No, the constraints, by having the constraints off, I said, Well, then it's no longer funny. Exactly. Regular radio was funny. The government was trying to shut me down. That was drama.

That's fun. That's tension, right?

But then I got to satellite. The tension wasn't there. What do you do now that you have the ultimate freedom? I decided to shift the show. I ultimately am more interested in the show now than I've ever been.

I would say that in a compliment to you, that it was less deliberate or contrived or strategic for you to, Oh, let's switch it up now and give the audience something they're not going to expect. I think it, and I haven't known you for a thousand years, but it does seem pretty obvious that you have naturally just evolved into a more curious serious, not as a pejorative person who's interested in different kinds of questions and with different kinds of people.

Let's make it simpler.

It would be really creepy to be my age and still doing a show the way I did it when I was 30.

When I was 30, I was- But you weren't doing it as a ratings ploy.

You were being sincere and genuine.

I thought I was funny. I always had this idea that we could be really funny on the radio, that radio didn't have to be a bastardized medium.

No, but I mean now. Now, it was not a rating point. Now, it could still be funny. You are, hands down, the best interviewer in all of media.

All right. Thank you. It's true.

Without a doubt.

Take the compliment, Howard.

I'm taking the compliment. No matter what. My psychiatrist said, You should be able to take a compliment.

This is what I'm doing. It doesn't matter whether it's comics or athletes or musicians or actors or whatever it is. You question them for us as us. I love that aspect. It's a layman's It's point of view, and it's very curious, and you're listening. You have a bunch of fucking cards with questions on it. You're engaged in a conversation, and it was a true inspiration for us. It really was.

Sean is holding up all his cards.

By the way, let's let Sean get a question. He wrote a thousand. Come on, Sean.

I have pages of them because I don't know.

Sean and I don't really know each other.

That's why I wrote all this stuff down. My research of you, because I am a big fan, I found all these things that we actually do have in common growing up, issues with our dad, you don't like Italy, which you I just went with Jimmy Kimmel, I didn't want to go either. We're going to get I want to go to Italy with you. Wait, wait, wait. Stop bullying. As a kid, I was bullied, too, not for being Jewish, but for being gay. He's going to get to the question.

I was, broadly, I was bullied for being gay, and I wasn't. It was crazy. I got bullied for everything. I said, I'm not gay.

We're sorry to see you leave. Leave that side.

You seem very gay.

But the thing that I thought was fascinating, my mom had a glass eye, your dad had a glass eye, and neither one of us was allowed to talk about it. Can I ask you a question? Can you wait one second?

Is your mom still alive?

No, she's dead. Okay.

My father died two years ago.

I know.

I'm sorry about that. I want to ask you a question. This is a what would you do? Forget these other two guys. I'm asking you because you had a mother with a glass eye. So my father had this glass eye, and I could go into that for three hours.

Same. There's so many things.

It's so fucking heavy.

It's so great. But it's also funny.

But when he died, I was given a box of his stuff. What do you mean? I told you, you shouldn't have an audience of this guy.

By the way, the same.

I open up the box. Yeah, of course. It's my father's glass eye. Wait a minute.

The same thing. When my mom died, my sister passed it around and repackaged it. Each one of us, we open, Oh, we got something from my sister. It's my mom's fucking eye.

Here comes the question. Here comes the question. I go to my wife. I say, I got this eye. The great Beth. Beth. Mybeautiful Beth.

Beth Stern. Where is she, honey? Where's Beth?Oh, there she is.Oh, there she is.Oh, I love you so much.Hi, Beth. Nice to meet you. I've heard such great things.

Anyway, here's the thing. I turn to my wife and I say to my wife, I don't know. I go and I open it up, and my father's eye was such a taboo subject. My father never talked to me about anything. That's right. One time I asked my mother, Does dad have a glass? She said, Listen to me. You, that's your father's story. Don't ask me. I'm like, What the fuck?How old were you? I was a kid.

How old?

Okay, here's the deal.

How old were you when you still didn't know whether your dad's eye was glass?

No, they wouldn't talk.

Did it blink shut? Did it blink shut or did it stay open? Did it blink shut or stay open?

It stayed mostly open and also things would form.

You needed to confirm?

My mom wear shades, like a a tint of glasses.

It wasn't the confirmation of the glass. I wanted to know what That's what happened with my father. That's right, yes. But I wasn't allowed to add. My father would blow up if everyone was afraid he'd get really angry. He could throw that eye at you. He could. But here's my question. Now I have the eye and I said to my wife, I need to find that. I can't just take my father's eye and throw it in the garbage. There might be laws against that. I don't know. Are there? I don't know.

Wouldn't you want to save it as a keepsake?

No. No, no, no. Beth, where is it?

It's a cat toy now.

She's got it. She's She's got it in a locket around her neck.

She brought it here for you guys. No, so she says to me, Throw it in the ocean. I go, I'm not going to throw it. That's beautiful. I said, Imagine my father's eye was your beautiful.

Your dad's never seen the ocean.

He loved the ocean.

What did you do with the eyes, my question?

What did you do?

Well, I got it sitting in a box.

Yeah, of course you do. You got to hold it. You're not tossing in the fucking ocean?

No, you're not.

You brought yours on stage.

My mom... Same. We weren't allowed to ask about Irish Catholic, same as Jewish. You just don't talk. You stuff it all down.

There's our headline, Irish Catholic, same as Jewish. Absolutely.

That's the title of this episode. My mom-There are a few difference between Irish and Jewish. Just a couple. But not gays and Jews. My mom, we weren't allowed to. My whole life, I was like, I'd be at the store, and this checkout girl at the counter would be staring at my mom's eye. I'm like, Mom, they're staring at your eye. Just shut up. Then 10 years old, 20 years old, 30 years old, 35 years old. Finally, I'm like, Mom, what happened to your eye? She still didn't want to talk about it. I found out after she died, she had cancer in the eye. They took it out, two years old. Then as she grew older, this gets really gross and funny. As she gets older, She gets… My sister and I read the medical reports. They took skin from her vagina to reshape her eye as she grew older. Then my oldest brother goes, I knew when I got upset with her, I wanted to fuck her in the eye. God, it's true. It's dark.

That's it. This show has to be canceled. They're ridiculous. That is very offensive.

I made a terrible joke about that once a long time ago, but I'm not going to repeat it here.

By the way, we're all talking about being honest. That's an honest story. That's true story. That's us making jokes about painful things. Yes.

Her complaint after that, she thought that everybody looked like a cunt, right? Isn't that what she said? Did she famously say that?

When I was a little kid. I was five years old. There was a kid on my block, five-year-old kid, came up to me, said, My parents told me your father has a glass eye. I was so freaked out. We got into a fist fight. It's probably the only fight I ever won. I beat him up. It was crazy, but I could never ask. My father wasn't approachable like that. That's why it was so much mystery.

Did you ever get the story?

Yes, I did. It was a crazy story. You don't have to share. What happened was I was so curious about the eye and everything about my father because I didn't know him. I would sneak into his room and they would leave the house, which was infrequent. Nobody ever left my house. No one could figure out the lock. My father kept his eye with his porno. The eye is- Wait, what? My father had porno. He had some erotic books and things. If you met my mother, she's not exactly putting out. My mother once said to me, I prefer to be celibate, but your father has knee. I go, Really? That's gross.

But fucking somebody in the eye is then.

It was books, no movies, no tapes.

It was books back then, and the books were the books were wacky, but the eye was staring at me. I wanted to read the erotic books, so I was all freaked out about it, the eye.

But then finally-She pups it out to go to sleep.

I don't know what went on, but in all seriousness, I finally talked to my mother about it. She wouldn't tell me, but I broke her down. It was a terrible accident when my father was young. He put some film in a bottle, and the bottle exploded. He lit it, and it exploded in his eye when he was a little kid. Oh, wow. My father had a fabulous attitude about his eye in the sense that I didn't see any evidence that he saw himself as handicapped. He did his thing.

Was he just proud? Was that the thing he just didn't want to?

I think it was a big pain for him in his life. Seriously, a seriously big pain.Wow.Yeah, it was a big issue.My.

Mom would sleep. Her eye was constantly open. When she slept, she'd be like, like this. I would approach the bed and I'd be like, Mom? Oh, she's sleeping. Oh, no, she's not sleeping. Oh, she's awake. I didn't know whether… I'm like, Can I get a glass of water? Oh, I don't know. Oh, you're sleeping. It was constantly just like that. It was crazy. Then we would- Where is the eye now? My sister has it in a box.

Is it like a time share? You get it.

No, but do you get it?

If you wanted for the holidays, you- Sure, I could do it.

She could pass it around. One really quick question. I've said this on the show before, but we used to take... My mom used to go bowling on Thursday nights, and we used to go upstairs. We used to invite friends over, and we'd had a chain on the door, and we'd go upstairs and get her extra eye. She had two in the box, and we'd get her, and they'd knock on the door, knock, knock, knock. We'd open it just as much as the chain would go, and we'd stick the eye out and go, Who's there? With the eye.

Anyway.

I wouldn't have risked that in my house.

That's fun.

Yeah, it is fun. It's fun but dangerous if you knew my dad.

Tell me about Italy and Jimmy Kimmel. Did you like Italy? I know you didn't want to go.

I'll give you an exclusive. This is the most boring answer ever. It was actually a bad question because I loved it. I don't have anything to bitch about it.

You didn't think you were going to love it.

No way. I don't like to travel. I'm perfectly happy sitting at home. If I want to see Italy, I'll go on the internet and look at pictures. Or CNN. I did.

But I went to Paris once and I was like, The Eiffel Tower, and I saw it. I'm like, Got it. Ready to go home. It looks like the movies and the postcards got it. It looks the same.

Yeah, we had a great time.

I'm going to somehow convince you and Beth that this is going to be great?

No, I had said, My wife wanted to travel, and I wanted to be a human being. I can't be in a marriage. If my wife wants to travel, I can't say, Well, go ahead.

Once a year, she gets out.

You go, and we ended up having a very romantic time, honey, right? Romantic Romance was in the air. Romance happened. She's barely confirming that. I know. Poor woman. Imagine, think about it.

That was a nod.

Imagine me crawling on top of you in Florence. I mean, Okay. It's like a praying mantis attacking you. I felt for the woman. I did, but she's a good sports. She took it like a champ. Jesus Christ. I felt horrible. I But, honey, it wasn't so bad. It was over quick.

You're the king of the insects. You're like,.

Like the like, oh. Like the fly, brindlefly.

Howard, is there any one interview you have that you regret? Is there any one that you're like, Oh, many.

What's the one you regret the most? Well, because I was an asshole many times. When I was on regular radio, terrestrial radio, whatever you want to call it, I didn't have the faith that if I did an interview that my audience would hold, we had something like a 10 share, number one in New York, and I thought, well, if someone comes on the air and they're talking, I could hear the radio's clicking off. That the only thing that might be compelling is if I was doing my thing, which means I was not trusting of other people that other people might have talent. There were people, and I've written about this, the fabulous, most wonderful Robin Williams, for example, came on my show. I just was ridiculously insulting.

Why?

Because I was trying to be funny. Robin Williams is way funnier than I am. Let him be funny. But being the insecure child that I was and somehow having some connection with an audience where I was intuitive and thinking I could hear when they're turning off the radios. If somebody gave a long answer or it wasn't moving fast enough, the rhythm wasn't right, I could hear the radios clicking off. I really had no business having guests on.

It's funny. You're really honest about that in your self-assessment of that time in your life now that you're older. Is that just a result of getting older, or is this a result of doing a lot of work?

It's a result of leaving terrestrial radio and going to satellite. It suddenly dawned on me. I work for a company now that has 100 something channels. As long as the person who's paying for a subscription is happy with the product, and if they're listening to me and I'm doing long-form interview, and if it's not their cup of tea, they can go to a different channel on our service. That freed me. That liberated me because it wasn't about me necessarily holding the audience. If you enjoy listening to Robin Williams, great. Then we have you as a listener. But if you don't, there's a million other choices on satellite.

But don't you also find that your agenda is no longer to provide a show for your listener? But instead, perhaps you hope that the people remaining listening to you on that particular day happen to be as interested in the person you're talking to as you are. In other words, you're not- That's right. Yeah, it's a more honest… You're not pushing, you're not pressing, you're just sincere.

Yes, but you couldn't have done that. If you guys started your radio… Let's say you started a career in radio back in the day, this format would not have lasted. It would not be on the radio. It doesn't hold an audience en masse. Jimmy Fallon sitting in our audience, when he does an interview, he can't do an hour interview. He's got to sit there because he's dealing with televisions coming on and off and on and off. We're in a unique position. The period of time we're in right now has allowed us to sit here and have a real conversation, and we can play to a niche audience. And so not to get too academic about it, the old format of radio is gone. I recognize that when I came to satellite, and I felt that was the innovation. I could sit and have a real conversation with someone like Robin Williams. I have regrets. The format helped me to evolve.

I have an actual question for Jimmy Seriously, no, to that point-No offense, but I think I'm the interview.

You'd be great.

I guess I just haven't delivered the goods. Jimmy, why don't you take over? This always happens. Always happens. Why don't you get up and do a few Gilbert God freedom pressures? Go ahead, pal.

It has everything to do with what you just said, which is Johnny Carson used to have long, long, long interviews, 20 minutes, half hour. Jimmy, I was thinking about you because you're one of the best at what you do. Thank you for standing.Shit, term. Have you ever had discussions about what Howard is saying about instead of the 6, 7 minutes you do, all right, you don't have a mic.

He's coming up to the stage.Oh.

Here we go.

Listen, he's never going to leave. You know your time.

Once Jimmy comes on. They got a mic for him now.

Look at the Fallon mic.

I love this.

Come on, Jimmy. God bless you. Come on, Jimmy. Can I leave now? No.

Did you ever have the discussion about changing your format to do where this feels like it's going, which is long form interviews as opposed to six, seven minutes. You can't. No, you can't do it. I wish that I could do a longer interview with certain guests. But I do wish that I can get into it and talk for an hour. I I'm jealous when I can listen to you.

When you hear a real conversation.

Yeah, I love it because when it gets going, it's great. Even with an audience, like you said, we're loving this.

But here's the good news. When I'm in the mood for what you provide and what Kim will provide, what Cobert provides, you guys do it better than anyone. You don't even forget about the other guys.

I don't even focus.

Why not I do? But when I'm in the mood for a long-form thing, it's like there's no one better.

Thank you.

How much do you choose? Thank you, Jimmy.

Thank you, Jimmy Fallon. Jimmy, one Gilbert Godfried impression, for Christ's sake. Thank you.

Really. I just want to say my beautiful wife, Paula, is in the audience. She dated you when you were 14.

Anyway, you haven't talked to her in a couple of years.

Give her a call.

Paula Jivonen. I love Jimmy very much, by the way. I want to tell you. We love Jimmy. Who doesn't love Jimmy?

Fallon. I'll let you in on his secret. And Nancy Jivonen.

Nancy's the best. Jimmy and I are going to go camping together on a beach, and it's just going to be the two Two of us alone. Jimmy, right? We're going to be in a... What is that called? An RV? An Airstream.

Wow. How much of your-He thinks I'm going to go. How many of your guests? Because one of the other things that we get to do is we get to choose. We reach out to people that we're interested in talking to. How much of that do you do and how much of that comes in through?

We reach out to some people, but mostly, and this is probably to our detriment, but I don't want to have a lot of guests. We keep a limited amount. I think some of our strongest show is when we're just sitting and doing our own thing.

We'll be right back. Now, back to the show.

I have to say, I tried to be a guest on your show for so many years. I kept asking my publicist every year, just hoping like, Are things good enough in my career where maybe I could be with however? I remember-It wasn't bad. No, but I once got... My publicist said, Listen, Jason, we He's got news back. It's good news, bad news. Good news is he says he's a fan. Bad news is he says he just genuinely really has nothing he would like to know about... No, no, no. I'm paraphrasing, but it was absolutely true.

You know what I was There's nothing fancy about my life anymore. Honestly, and I've said this to Jason, I said, Look, I could Google you and find out enough stuff. I don't really need to sit and talk to you.

There's nothing like that about anybody.

What have you done? I'd rather talk to a... Stop it. No, no, no. But seriously, it's much more interesting talking to somebody who's got a weird fucked up- Here's the thing.

If I did a show every day where I just interviewed one guest, that would be fascinating me. But there's also an audience in my group that likes to hear us doing bits and shtick and sitting and talking, Robin and I just talking, and I recognize that. I don't overload the show with a lot of guests, but sometimes we do reach out. I wanted Joe Biden on, so we had him on. I wanted Bruce Springsteen. I had begged him to come on. I just wanted him to come on. That's the white whale. It was unbelievable to be sitting in a room with Bruce, and he's doing a concert, basically, and talking about how he creates songs. We do reach out, and there are people I just love to talk to.

Do you miss playing music at all? Like being a disk jockey?

No, it never was about me. It's weird. I play music and I talk over it. It's like I can't… When I got into radio, I was a disk jockey, straight disk jockey. My father would say, First, you must learn to be a straight disk jockey. Not all that nonsense you do. I went on the radio and be like, Hi, this is Howard Stern, W-R-N-W, Progressive Music from the Woods, and this is Crosby Still's National Young. We would do that, and I hated it. I hated it. Even you had a segue, you had to play a record and make sure there was no dead air.

You had no autonomy. You couldn't launch bands.

You had to play-Oh, no, I played whatever I wanted, but it was horrible. I mean, it was a lot of pressure. You had to get the commercials lined up. It was just you in a little room in a house somewhere up in the woods. These were these shitty radio stations, $96 a week, and you played records and you announced them. This is what I did, and I was the worst at it. I was the worst. There were no performers in my family. I didn't understand performance. I was not in show business. My father even said, You cannot be unredial. You have no elocution. You do not enunciate. You read nothing.

You did have some sense that you-I had no sense. I was an idiot. You had a sense that your personality might be halfway entertaining. I didn't know. Between that and the music, someone would listen.

When I'd walk around college, nobody seemed to pay attention to me. I think I had the worst personality.

You had no confidence that you were going to be somewhat compelling at all.

I would write letters to my girlfriend saying, I will be the world's greatest radio performer.

Why did you think that?

I have no idea. I don't know. I just knew that there was something there.

You weren't always... Sorry. No, please keep going. You weren't always this charismatic You weren't always this comfortable and talking.

No, it took me years. That's why I resent this podcast. You guys are just down here talking. I had to spend years. I had to spend years.

We would need four years.

It took me 10 years just to get conversational. I It was very slow. You guys are too talented. No, but in all seriousness, it was... Playing records was horrible.

Were you a fan of music, though?

Oh, huge fan of music. Music meant more to me than religion. I never got a thing out of religion, but man, when I'd hear the Beatles or the Stones or George Harrison, My Sweet Lord, that stuff, that spoke to me. That moved me. I was happy to launch a lot of bands. I was a program director for a while. I didn't even understand. I didn't know anything. A guy from a record company would call me up and he'd go, Would you play our record? I go, Sure. He goes, No, I'll play it for you. Because you don't have to play it for me. I'll report it to billboard. I didn't care. I was happy to help somebody.

Do you get Star Trek around musicians?

I admire musicians, and I know how hard they work at it.

But is that the group that if anyone was going to get you Star Trek, that or athletes or musicians? Oh, yeah. Who's the one that you haven't met, you'd be like, Oh, I talk.

Oh, jeez. Is it a Beatle? Well, I've met Paul and Ringo, and they were great on the show.

You want to take a temperature of the room about the name The Beatles?

Oh, yeah. Do you guys know about this?

Old Captain, Brain What happened?

But let's take an honest thing of the audience. I didn't know my whole life. I thought it was the insect, the beetles. I didn't know it was people who make beats, the beetles.

The B-E-A-T. He was like...

Clap if you were with me. Thank you.

Meanwhile, that's why- Did not know that till right now.

I didn't know what- That just sucked the air out of the room. I want to thank the guys for that story.

Have you noticed the arrow in the FedEx logo?

Yeah. I don't know what that means.

All right, here's one you didn't know, Sean. Sean, here's one I guarantee you, you didn't know. You know the place you go for roast beef, right? Arbies, right? Yeah. Why is it called Arbies?

They got the meat or whatever they say.

No. No. Think Why is it Arbies? Roast beef. R-b, roast beef.

I didn't know that, but I put it together.

Oh, R-Bs. R-bs. Oh, I see.

Did not know that.

Look at Will.

We could do this all day long. This is going great. A- Now, wait.

Speaking Speaking of really- What is happening? Really glad I came on. By the way, these guys treat it like it's a TV show. I'm in a trailer. I'm waiting to come on. There's a warm-up act for the audience. I don't know from this. You just go on the radio.

First of all, I don't think we've said it yet. I can't thank you enough for doing this. You don't do this. I've seen you do it for Letterman. I've seen you do it for Kimmel. You don't do this, and I can't thank you enough.

This is a really- I'm happy to be here. Thank you. Happy to be here.

We really do. And just so you're not just hearing it from Jason that you are the gold standard for us, and you are the guy that we always wanted to get.

We talk about you all the time.

Honestly, this is a big deal for us. I'm really honored. And Will, much to your point, for many years, I couldn't take a compliment, but I do appreciate you guys.

I got a new one for you. Okay. Everybody knows you're recently 70. It's unbelievable.

It's so fucked up.

No, you have not changed-Oh, God. Beth, back me up here. What are you guys doing? I know you're not out there running 10 miles on the beach every day. Is it just jeans? I mean, you look exactly the same.

I look terrible. No, no, Howard. The only thing I will say- Does he not look exactly the same for the last 30 years? I can't even see a picture, but I will tell you one thing. I do not color my hair.

No, I know. I can tell you.

You I don't. This is it. I have a gray beard.

He doesn't either. You don't color your hair, right?

I don't do anything. No.

But you're supposed to have a belly.

I do have a belly. I have a belly and tits. You're supposed to...

Everything's got it.

I got a belly and tits, right, honey? You've seen me with my shirt off. She's busy talking.

By the way, Sam- You want to go turfs off? Yeah, wait. You want to go turfs off? Can we go turfs off? No.

But you don't look like you ache or you're sore. I can't fucking-I'm a mess. No, you seem like you're in great... Are you doing anything that- First of all, You paint, you paint.

You paint, you paint, you paint. You paint, you paint, you paint. Let's get into that.

Well, yeah, I paint. I like to paint.

It's incredible, the painting here. I don't know if you guys... Does people know? Okay. And the photography, it's like... And the tiny sketching with the magnifying glass. I liked it.

I don't use a magnifying glass. No more? No, I never did.

I never used a magnifying light. I saw your drafting thing. There was something-Yeah, I have a big magnifying, but I don't use it for that.

Really. I'm just telling you.

It was there. I'm not fucking crazy.

No, it was there. It was there. But yeah, I enjoy those things.

It's really cool. When did you start playing guitar?

Okay.

Short version.

I'll tell you why I play guitar. I'm going to blame Jimmy Fallon for this.

You're going to jam with Jolly Roll tonight? No.

Was Jimmy here tonight?

Jimmy, stand up. There we go.

Jimmy Fallon. Jimmy Fallon says to me- You got to be kidding me. Here's what happened. Ten years ago, I turned 60, and I said, I either want to play the guitar or I want to learn to I never drew. For some reason, I wanted to paint in the worst way.

That's all in 10 years.

I began to study watercolor, and I really focused on it. You know as a pianist that you have You just have to focus on it. It's not that people have some natural ability. It's the work. You have to work on it.

People go, Oh, I don't have that. I've been focused on the penis his whole life.

I'm an expert.

Just two laughs for I thought that was pretty good.

It's a tough, pretty crowd. We'll sweeten that in the edit. It's okay to laugh.

But anyway, I enjoy those.

But I applaud you wanting to research and find other things. Not that you are old, Older, like somebody is not old, but that you pursue things that still challenge you.

Somebody your age is willing to do new things is what you're saying.

Well, it's true. By the way, that fucks my head up because I said to my wife, I want to learn guitar, but I feel foolish because of my age. What am I trying to do here? I don't want to be a rock star. I just want to understand music.

Challenge yourself to a new hobby.

Because I love musicians, and I love what they do, and I want to understand that language.

Let's do a duet sometime, piano and guitar.

Do you play Minuet and G? I do.

All right, then we can do it.

Are you playing classical guitar? No, but I don't play classical guitar.

Yeah, he's doing a twelve- string guitar, man.

No, no, no. It hurts the fingers, though, doesn't it?

Well, look at the tips of my fingers. Look at those calluses.Oh, my God.Yeah. How much are you playing a day? How much are you playing a day? Well, I'm on vacation now, so I can play-From guitar? No, from work. I'm on vacation from work, so I can play. Some One day is five, six hours. Really? Yeah. Really?

What? Wow. You must be good now.

I'm not good.

Who's your favorite guitarist?

Jesus.

Why don't you just name one of them?

A few of them. Well, I mean, you got to say Hendrix. You got to say Jimmy Page. I mean, Jimmy Page. Now I have even more appreciation for Jimmy Page. I was playing one of the most beautiful love songs, Thank You, by Zeppelin, and the intro to that. You sit and you realize this guy wrote this.

Yes.

Excellent. Thanks, guys. Was that you singing or playing the guitar? Keep that applaud there. But you realize how brilliant it is. In order to get to that level, you've got to play every day for hours and hours. I'm mad at myself Because when I was younger, I didn't allow myself to practice music, which Sean did when he was smart about it.

When I was younger, I had so many… I don't know why I reacted this way, but so many adults, when they found out when I was 5, 6, 7, 8 years old playing piano, practicing, they'd go, Oh, you know what? I wish I would have stuck with it. Over and over and over, all these adults telling me that. I was like, There must be something to that. That's what made me stick to it.

Was there a fork in the road where had you stuck with that instead of radio, you would have been that? No.

It had to be radio for me.

It was never like architecture.

I was five years old. No, I announced to my family, I will be on the radio, which was ridiculous. You were all in. It doesn't make any sense. I don't understand it.

But your dad was a sound engineer.

Yeah, well, he was a radio engineer.

A radio engineer. That part of it made sense.

Yeah. Listen, my father didn't spend a lot of time paying attention to me or interacting with me. I used to sit.

Mine did.

Well, I would watch him. He was focused on you. When I would see him commuting to work, and he'd put the radio on, and Bob Grant was on, who was this conservative broadcaster, but the guy was mesmerizing on the radio. I saw the way my father listened and shushed me, told me to shut the fuck up so he could hear Bob Grant. Shut up. I said, So that's how you get. That's how you get someone's attention. Get on the radio.

You did it to get your dad's attention.

I think so, yeah.

Sorry, just to follow up on that, if you don't mind, Jesus Christ. What was the moment where your dad... I mean, obviously, you had incredible success in radio. Was there a moment where he... Was there an actual moment where he went, Holy shit, Howard?

I think my mother put him out. He just said, I love you. My father grew up in the depression. He had nothing. When I say nothing, it was literally no shoes. His father worked in a sweatshop. It's a pants presser. My father was a very deprived guy, and he didn't have a lot of room for emotion. I think he probably had a lot of bottle up emotion, but he couldn't express it, and he didn't know how. He didn't have the facility. But I would have loved to have known my father.

I would have loved to-Why do you think you're so well adjusted? I'm not.

I'm a mess. I'm still with a psychiatrist.

Beth wouldn't be with an idiot.

No. Wouldn't be with an asshole. I didn't say I was an idiot. I said, I'm fucked up. You're not. Honey, come up here and tell people I'm fucked up. Please come up.

Well, what do you- She says I'm a lot.

Honey, please. You don't want to come up.

Do you think... Well, but I don't think that people know. If there was one misconception of you, do you have any idea what that might be? I mean, I don't know, but I will say that for me personally, given your edge of humor, it was really exciting to get to know you a little bit and see how incredibly soft and chewy you are on the inside, how incredibly sincere and genuine and attentive you are to the- But what I said was it was unfair.

You just go around saying, Oh, well, that's an act on the radio. It was who I was. I had a lot of anger.

Obviously, but there's a choice to not be fucked up and just know how to manage that.

Yeah, but my attitude about radio, and I say this over and over again, was I just want to make people laugh. I want people to have a great time in their car. Whether it's a compelling interview, great. But if I'm sitting there and I'm being really funny and I'm doing something good, well, that's what I'm trying to do. I I never did anything out of malice. I did it because I thought I was genuinely funny. Was I genuinely funny? Sometimes, sometimes not.

You were speaking the truth. Your observations were spot on. I was speaking my truth. It was sometimes painful for folks, and that was the funny part.

Part of that, being honest, though, I remember when you spoke about your health care, about having a little spot on your kidney. Thank God it was nothing. You revealed that was one of the few things that you did not share with your audience because you've always been so open and honest with your audience about everything. Where is that line and is there anything?

I'll tell you why, and you guys probably know this from doing this now and having a popular show. If you go on a radio and you say, Listen, I could potentially have this thing, and they're telling me it could be cancer, a 95% chance. You start to get letters from every know-it-all in the audience. Listen, my mother died. You're fucked, you're this, you're that. I'm neurotic. I am neurotic about my help. I don't want to know. Where's Bradley Cooper? I just want to look at him. Come on. You know what I mean?

Come on, Bradley, sit up. There he is.

There's Bradley.

Look at that. That's a son of a bitch. So good-looking. He's gorgeous. I love Bradley Cooper. I don't mind saying it. We all do. No, no. There are people... Sean doesn't love him.

He told me about Bradley, I love you.

Another one of the most genuinely kind. Can I tell you a Bradley Cooper story?

We'd love to hear a Bradley story. Can I tell you a Bradley Cooper story?

If it's positive. One of the greatest moments for me on the show, because you asked about people I interviewed. I was interviewing Bradley, and at the time, Bradley had just finished a run on Broadway. The Elephant Man. The Elephant Man. Brilliant.

Brilliant. Brilliant job. Absolutely brilliant.

I am a fan of The Elephant Man. Bradley is so serious about The Elephant Man. He has a serious Elephant Man hang up. He goes, I just want you to know I don't joke about The Elephant Man. I said, I'm not going to joke, but I would like to do The Elephant Man for you. I would love if you would come back as your Elephant Man. I said, Oh, you're so kind. You're so But God of kindness. So beautiful. Bradley looked at me and I said, He's either going to walk out and he goes, Oh, thank you. We had a moment where we were both the elephant man, immersed in our character, and it was one of the single biggest highlights. That's beautiful.

Radiomagic.

That is. Radio Magic.

Look it up.

You got to act with Bradley. I got to act with Bradley Cooper. Very few people-Very few. This guy's one of our best actors. He is.

Rarified, and- Without a doubt. He's one of the One of the greatest filmmakers we've got, Maestro, was incredible.

That's right. When he saw, he was so inspired. Tell him, Bradley, how good I was. He loved it. Never saw such acting. I've had no training, by the way, as an actor. What? No, that's right.

How many times did you audition for private parts?

Yeah, because I was going to say, you want to know something about private parts?

Here's the funny thing.In.

Developingwhat a movie, by the way.Thank you.Thank you. Howard, it's a great movie.I love that.Thank you.It.

Is so good.It's.

So good.

But I got to tell you a funny story about it because this leads into it. It's insane.

Closer to the mic, please.

I wrote the book. I wrote the book and I had no clue when they said they wanted to make a movie out of it, how am I going to make a movie out of this thing? Betty Thomas. Before Betty, I was involved in writing some of the scripts. We had other writers and this and that. There were 25 full draughts of this thing, and each one was worse than the next. At my at the time, who just passed away, and Don Bucker loved him. He's great. But he said to me, These scripts are so bad, you'll be laughed at. The movie studio said, Listen, we're at the time. Reischer Entertainment put up the money, and Paramount was the distributor. They said, Listen, this is crazy. The money that we're spending on these writers, and you're not accepting any of these scripts, we're going to hire Jeff Goldblum to play you since you won't do that.

No way. Is that true?

Great Jeff Goldblum, by the way.

I looked him in the eye and I said, You know what? I would pay to see that. I would love to see Jeff Goldblum as Howard Stern. I think it would be terrific. But anyway.

Wait, at this time, was there a plan for you to play the part? And they wanted to actually go in the direction?

No, but they were so frustrated with me because I had written into the contract, and again, this was my agent's brilliance. They couldn't make the movie unless I had full script approval. I wrote half the scripts and they sucked.

That'd be so great to just shoot some scenes today with Jeff Goldblum. Absolutely. And just put it on the internet? Yeah. That'd be a lot of fun.

You want to know one of the most thrilling things in my career? Speaking of that.

Then we got to go. Oh, you got to go? No, after that. You got to go.

After this. You have a hard out. You have a hard out. People are really tough about it.

I have a hard out. No, I do. Oh, yeah, I'm very busy. I have to go home and paint and play the guitar. I'm busy. No, I sit at home and stare at the wall, and Beth looks at me. She's not allowed to leave the house.

Will you go home tonight and just turn on the TV?

Oh, yeah. I've got the advanced copy of next week's Bachelorette. No way. I cannot wait.

Do you watch Traitors?

No.

I'm Bachelor Nation all the way. Anybody else with me? Look, Jimmy Fallon's with me. Bradley. Sure. Well, these people have a life. I love it.

Bradley, you do not.

Amanda loves it.

Bradley doesn't watch it.

Bradley watches Bachelorette. That's the secret. He doesn't want anyone to know. All right. Yeah, he loves it. What time is it?

It's time for you to go.

6:30. We're done. We're out.

We've taken up way too much of your time.

Way too much of your time.

You're very driving. By the way, and I- Did you feel we were a success? Yes. This is a great Oh, my God.

We're going to record.

Honestly.

Everybody take a nice break. We'll record in about 20 minutes. What do you mean? It's a great rehearsal.

What are you recording? Tell me. This is a rehearsal. Is the show actually over? Do I leave and then you keep talking?

You're going to leave and we're We're going to do a wrap-up. We're going to talk about you a little bit.

A wrap-up? Yeah.

We're going to talk about how great you are once you leave. Maybe I should listen in.

I'll sit here. I won't stay at work. Go ahead. Let me hear what you guys do. I'll tell you what I'll do.

But here's the thing.

Every once in a while, Every once in a while, I'll interrupt and I'll just go, That's not good radio, or, That's really good radio.

Do you mind if we cut your mic?

Not at all.

I was a judge on America's Got Talent.

I know. Fantastic. The only reason I watched.

By the way, the guy who did the warm-up today, they had a him up. O's. Yeah, O's. I wanted him to win the entire season. He did not win that season. He should have. He's fabulous.

He's amazing. He's phenomenal.

O's Perlman. You know what you can- O's Perlman. A name built for show business.

Here's what you can do- It's going to get better than that.while you're being quiet and pretending that you're not here when we're doing that.

No, I'm not going to do it. If I have to be completely quiet, I'm not doing it.

All right, you can talk a little bit, but I want you to think about-I will do that in the protest.

We might embarrass you if you stayed and heard how much we were going to praise you.

Can I say something about you guys?

Yeah. Okay.

This is going to hurt.

It's got to be kind.

Thank you for having me. Thank you. I'm very excited that you're part of the SiriusXM family. We are, too.So are we. I wish you a lot of success. Thank you. Not too much success, but a lot of success. Sure. No, seriously, it's great to have you guys in the family.

Thank you for blessing us into it and by doing this.

I understand the serious stock is going to go over $2.90 now that you guys are here. God bless. I can't wait. All that stock, I'm going to be so wealthy.

You guys, please help us thank Howard Stern.

Thank you.

Great, Howard Stern. Thank I can't get out of my chair.

Howard Stern, keep it going. Keep it going. Keep it going. Keep The one and the only. The king of all media, radio, podcast, television, film.

He is the king of all media.

They had to raise the ceilings of the talk house just for him. All right. That That was surreal for me. I've never met him. I didn't ever get to talk to him. Was he what you thought he was going to be? Yeah, I was really nervous. I was really nervous.

Was he what you thought he was going to be?

Yes, I thought that- How was he different than you thought he was going to be? I didn't know he was going to be so relaxed and easy to talk to. I thought he was going to be like, So what do you guys got? Let's see what you guys got. He wasn't like that at all because he's the king of all of it.

But he was also incredibly generous and empathetic and probably knows that we're nervous and we're dumb and we have a new show and he's the king.

That's why I have 75 cars. We had a tremendous amount of candor.

Immediately, he took the reins and helped us, and he started talking. You wrote so many questions because you were so nervous, right? Seriously. Sean was upstairs and we were like, What the fuck? It's an hour.

Just like writing.

Any questions you didn't get to that we should listen to?

Tons.

Anything you're really pissed you didn't get to?

Let's I mean, we talked about a lot. I want to talk about Italy a little bit more. What was his ideal vacation?

We'll bring Jimmy on and talk about that.

Okay. Anyway, so I love him, though. I've been a huge fan. By the way, I didn't share with you guys the first time. What are you looking at?

Nothing. I'm just starting to think. I feel like you're working right now.

I am.

Can you feel it coming?

Yeah, he starts to work on a buy.

You can see his brain.

You can see it in real time. He tees himself up for it.

It's too early to do it now.

We're still doing wrap up.

We're wrapped Okay, we're wrapped up.

We're ready to go.

We got jelly roll coming up, which is so exciting. Oh, yeah.

Oh, so here's the buy.

The first time I was ever here in the Hamptons was only two, three years ago. That was the first time ever. I stayed with Will at his house, which is not very far from here. This is going to be terrible. This is going to be horrible. Will lived so close. I was just going to ask Will, today, did you drive yourself over here? Or did you ride your- Bicycle.

Bicycle. Jesus Christ. For the live show?

Sorry about that, guys. Sorry about that. But the interview was fun, was it not? It was really fun.

Thank you guys for coming.

Thank you so much for coming, you guys. We're going to stick around for a jelly roll.

We're going to stick around for a jelly roll. Thank you, guys. Let's go enjoy some jelly roll.

Yeah, jelly roll.

Please stick around for a jelly roll outside. We're going to have a jelly roll performing out there. We're so excited.

Thank you, guys.

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