NBC Attempts to Limit Stern’s Criticism of Leno On His Radio Show
Before Howard Stern was selected as a judge on America’s Got Talent, we knew that he didn’t like Jay Leno. In fact he hated the guy. He said on more than one occasion how much he can’t stand Leno, and that he would never do his show.
Back in January of 2011, Stern was on Piers Morgan and explained how Leno stole ideas from him for The Tonight Show and also stole Stern’s longtime field correspondent “Stuttering John” using him as an announcer for the Tonight Show. Stern referred to Leno as creatively bankrupt. A long time Letterman friend, he said that Leno wasn’t qualified to scrub Letterman’s feet.
Fast forward to 2012, and Stern goes on the attack regarding reports that Leno took a pay cut to save jobs after The Tonight Show laid off 20 or so workers last week. Leno reportedly took a $5 – $10 Million pay cut that saved additional jobs from being eliminated.
Stern says that’s all smoke and mirrors and that Leno was actually the one behind the decision to axe the staff,
“It’s a smokescreen… Here’s what it really means, and you can take this to the bank: Jay Leno is a scumbag, He’s a spineless maggot. Jay wanted to cut staff. He’s embarrassed to do it. He didn’t want to come off as a bad guy.”
NBC then made, what I think, a huge error in judgment. They sent Stern a letter telling him to stop using his show, to talk about Leno.
Howard didn’t go on Serius/XM to be told what he can say and what he can’t say on his own show. The next day he made that more than clear, he expressed his view on the entire situation,
“I got a threatening kind of comment from one of the executives,” Stern told listeners Aug. 21. “I was laughing my ass off. I said: ‘Do not tell me to not talk about Jay Leno. I will f—ing talk about Jay Leno for four hours if you tell me not to. I was done with Jay, now I’m all fired up again. F— Jay!”
Stern knowing that he was nibbling on the hand that feeds him, he was quick to say that he loved and appreciated his role on AGT but would walk if he had to.
“I love my job on ‘AGT,’ I love working for the people at NBC — they’ve been nothing but wonderful, But please don’t tell me what to say. I’d rather leave than not talk about Jay Leno. … It’s fine. Fire me too.”
Here is audio from Stern’s show.
