Fans Called Howard Stern A "Con Artist" After This Leaked Private Lecture From 2013 (2024)

We all know about Howard Stern's creepy antics – from his cancel-worthy crude chats with Donald Trump to his interview with Cindy Crawford where he kept asking about her intimate experiences with Richard Gere. But in 2021, a fan leaked a private lecture by Stern from 2013, which proved how he "became everything he mocked."

The self-proclaimed "King of All Media" – who has a weaker audience reach than Joe Rogan – gained a reputation for being anti-mainstream interviews. So fans felt "cheated" by his aggressive business talk where he emphasized that "loyalty is commercialized for profit." But that wasn't the worst part of the footage.

Throughout the lecture, Stern seemed like a "teenager who still longs to sit at the cool kids' table during lunch." Only now, he was bragging about making celebrities relevant, expecting his underpaid staff to do more, and supporting certain communities just for business.

Howard Stern Was Too "Egotistic" Claiming He Made Celebrities "Current"

Twelve minutes into his lecture for the Summit Revolution 2013, Stern claimed: "Every record company should be begging [The Howard Stern Show], because we can actually still sell records." He bragged that "they "got walls of gold records, attributing sales of these records to our show." He went on to mention some celebrities he made relevant, including country singer Jewel – who's said to be dating Kevin Costner these days.

Stern even said he made Billy Corgan – who "was off the radar" – become "relatable to [his] audience." He added: "That same audience that pays for radio will pay for music and will pay for concert tickets. We are so valuable. Record companies should work with us. Record labels should be clamoring for us."

A critic wrote in the comment section of the clip: "So, Billy Corgan hit the top 10 because of Howard? Holy ....the EGO on this guy!" Another commenter answered, "He was top 5 before Howard. Dropped to top 10 after." Somewhere in the nearly one-hour video, you also hear Stern crediting himself for the success of David Letterman, Kathy Griffin, Adam Levine, Jon Stewart, and Jerry Seinfeld.

"Jerry Seinfeld had a show called The Seinfeld Chronicles that was about to go off the air," the lecturer recalled. "He used our show." As per Levine, Stern said the Maroon 5 frontman "owes" his show. "Adam Levine owes us, man. Nobody was looking for him before The Voice." As "payback," the host asks these celebrities to appear on his show at least twice a year.

Howard Stern Slammed His Overworked Yet Underpaid Staff For Looking "Homeless"

Stern said the "key" to getting such big names on his show was that "everyone pitches in" (even if it means pushing them to create fake Twitter/X accounts to spam celebrities into coming to his show). Nine years later, more questions about Stern's "underpaid" staff came out. On a Reddit thread, someone wrote: "[Richard] Christy makes $75,000 a year? My wife makes almost that much working at the post office!"

In the comments, someone noticed that Stern's arrogance and so-called teamwork didn't spare him from making mistakes in his presentation. "While demanding more work from everyone and running a PowerPoint presentation he managed to stand in front of a page... with the word STURCTURE misspelled for over 30 seconds." Stern later ranted about the appearances of his exhausted staff.

Stern explained that "if you're walking through the halls, and you're going to be seeing celebrities, and you represent this radio show, and this core team has worked for six months to book someone, and then the publicist walks in or the management walks in and they look and they go 'Oh this show is so gross... Oh look at them they look like bums they don't know what they're doing...' You've just blown it for me and you've blown it for yourself."

When that happens the radio icon said, "I'm going to just tell you, go the --- home and go get dressed for work." He said it's also what turns him off as a guest on other shows. "[If you're not dressed well] I am telling you, you will scare people away. I can't tell you how many shows I've done where I'm a guest and I walk in and whether I like it or not, I evaluate people and I go, 'Wow this looks like a --- dump.'"

Here's how much Howard Stern and his staffers make a year:

Howard Stern Had Some Unusual Tactics With His Employees

Stern also discussed how his team strategized to get The Matrix co-director, trans-woman Lana Wachowski on his show. Unfortunately, that never happened. In sharing his tactics, the host seemingly confessed to being a performative LGBTQ+ ally. "We should let Lana Wachowski and her people know who we are," he said.

Tthat when we're talking to a male hom*ophobic audience – we have a lot of hom*ophobia in our audience – Howard is a regular speaker on gay and lesbian and transgender topics." Still talking about himself in the third person, Stern said:

He continued: "We have continually made it our mission to talk to a male hom*ophobic audience and convert them make them understand that their feelings about gay people are backward. And what better way to move forward and to never mind preaching to the converted Lana, because that's what you did when you address the gay and lesbian community – preach to the people who really need to hear your message the most."

"We can craft a continual campaign to get Lana on the show if that's what we decide to do. And lana should be, you know, approached every once in a while. She should get an e-mail (e.g. 'guess who we had today?')." Stern then addressed his staffer, Mike Morales' "passion" for gay rights activism on social media.

"I Iove your passion about gay issues and you're someone who should be behind that effort and you should help us craft that effort because you're very effective on Facebook," said Stern. In this faux quote, a commenter summed up this part of the lecture, saying: "'Mike Morales, use your gayness to get Lana Wachowski' -Howard Stern."