Highlights
- Howard Stern was furious about Bill Maher’s comments on his relationship with his wife Beth and ex-wife, Allison Berns.
- Stern and Maher have a rocky past.
- They repaired their relationship in 2019 but faced another setback during the pandemic.
- Maher criticized Stern’s relationship with his wife, causing Stern to respond passionately.
Howard Stern was absolutely irate and bewildered by Bill Maher’s September 2023 comments about his relationship with his wife Beth. Stern’s takedown of Maher sparked a huge media response that, at the time, was already focused on the Real Time host for his position on the 2023 WGA/SAG-AFTRA strike.
Bill Maher slammed Stern on his podcast, “Club Random” for publicly talking about how much he loves his current wife, Beth. This reignited a feud that has plagued their multi-decade-long relationship. During Stern’s response, he defended both Beth and his first wife, Alison Berns, against what he deemed a “sexist” attack by Maher…
Inside Bill Maher And Howard Stern’s Past Feud
Bill Maher was a frequent guest on The Howard Stern Show in the 1990s during his Politically Correct days. Both the comedian and radio personality were known for their edgy bits and strong opinions. This made their banter both entertaining and newsworthy. But their relationship didn’t last.
In 2021, Maher was dragged by the press for his comments about the 9/11 hijackers. And Stern was among those who criticized him. This caused a rift between the two that didn’t repair itself until 2019.
At a private function, Stern apologized for being an “a**hole” to Maher on his radio show. This allowed the two to build back their relationship. Following this, Maher was interviewed on The Stern Show, and Stern flew to Los Angeles to appear on HBO’s Real Time.
During both appearances, Stern teased and questioned Maher’s relationship status. While Maher claimed the two agree on most things, their perception of the importance of monogamous relationships couldn’t be more different. Stern is, and had always been, a dedicated married man while Maher has proudly never been tied down for more than the length of a sneeze.
Despite repairing their relationship, the pandemic threw it back into turmoil. Stern, a notorious germaphobe, has only started to socialize in the summer of 2023 while Maher has had the opposite perspective on social distancing and masks.
This caused Maher to criticize Stern’s approach to COVID-19 on his podcast while speaking to Kevin Nealon in January 2023. During the conversation, Maher claimed he’d likely never see Stern again due to the latter’s fear of getting sick. This is something many in the media, as well as people in his life, have criticized Stern for.
But it was Maher’s ‘Club Random’ comments in September 2023 that really put the nail in the coffin of their friendship…
What Did Bill Maher Say About Howard Stern’s Relationship With His Wife Beth?
During Maher’s September 17th episode of his podcast “Club Random”, the Real Time Host took a shot at Howard Stern’s relationship with his wife Beth. It was during a conversation with John Lennon’s son, Julian, who has been a guest on The Stern Show in the past.
“I must say, there’s this thing that men do … Howard Stern … he’s saying to me, ‘Bill, you’re successful, but don’t you want to settle down?”‘ Maher said to Lennon. “And he goes on about how much he loves his wife, Beth, which he has been doing on the air for, like, 10 years.’
Maher continued, “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?” Bill Maher said to Lennon.
The Real Time host claimed that “stupid celebrities” gush about their wives all the time.
Maher’s comments suggested that Stern’s first wife, Alison Berns, would be upset by her ex-husband publicly waxing poetic about his new wife. Except, Stern has been with his second wife, Beth for about two decades and has been divorced from Berns for even longer.
Stern and Berns wed in 1978 and had three daughters together. Little is known about their divorce. While Stern and Berns do not have a close relationship following their secretive divorce, they certainly are on good enough terms to attend the same events. This includes their daughter Ashley’s summer 2023 wedding. Both Beth and Berns’s second husband were in attendance.
Maher’s comments fired up Stern enough for him to blast the comedian on his radio show…
On Tuesday, September 19th, Howard Stern fully responded to Maher’s statements. But only after claiming that he sent Maher an email.
“So I did something I’ve never done before. I wrote him an email,” Stern said to his co-host Robin Quivers and is audience before revealing what he said in the 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.”
“You don’t need to explain or justify yourself to anybody,” Quivers replied.
“I just wanted to see how brave he was,” Stern added. “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.”
But the Real Time host didn’t immediately respond. At the time of this writing, it’s unknown if Maher ever did reply.
Maher taking his time to reply to Stern’s email only lit a fire in the self-proclaimed King Of All Media. So, he decided to do take down the Real Time host live on his radio show.
“What a sexist thing to say. Like, what a convoluted, nutty thing to say,” Stern said.
Quivers, who has commented on how she feels Stern is addicted to Beth, vehemently agreed, slamming Maher’s comments. Stern’s longtime cohost, who is unmarried, claimed that she and Maher could never understand the dynamics of a long-term committed relationship because they’ve never been in one.
Stern also took the chance to defend his ex-wife, stating, “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.”
Later in the broadcast, Stern further challenged Maher’s accusation that his ex-wife Alison Berns was upset about his public relationship with Beth.
“I happen to know something about my own life. Trust me, nobody’s upset about [it]. Believe me. [Maher] knows nothing about me.”
However, Stern was even more forceful when it came to defending his current wife:
“[Maher] ought to shut his mouth,” Stern continued. “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?’”
“Hey, yeah, I do love my wife. I like saying ‘I love my wife’. And I don’t see anything wrong with that. I think it’s good,” Stern said to his audience. “And I can pretty much assure you, I don’t think anyone is upset about me loving my wife.”
Source: NewsFinale
