Howard Stern Reveals Fate Of Show

Legendary radio host Howard Stern informed his legions of fans last week that he may not be signing off for good, after all.

Stern’s longtime SiriusXM contract was not renewed this year, leading him to lean into rumors that he would not be returning. On his Monday show, Stern played snippets of broadcasts about the development alongside Andy Cohen.

“I know you’re expecting a big announcement from Howard, and this is not how things were meant to go,” Cohen, 57, said during the program, adding that the change has been a “surreal morning here.”

“There’s been a lot of talk about what’s going to happen with Howard’s deal. Is he fired? I don’t know how much I’m allowed to say, except that he’s not here and I am,” Cohen continued. “Howard was supposed to start the show today, and this was supposed to be something of a cleaner handoff. There is nothing clean about it. Here we are. I’m kind of winging it.”

Cohen, who produces the “Real Housewives” TV series, suggested that he would be filling Stern’s slot with a new show called the “Andy 100.”

“I can’t overstate what Howard has meant to this company and what he did for SiriusXM,” Cohen said. “He walked so that we could run. I can’t possibly fill his void.”

Not long after, Stern reemerged behind the studio’s microphone to confirm that he would be returning to his show, but it wasn’t clear when that may be.

“I’m going to have to fill everyone in,” Stern said about Cohen and others guest-hosting in his stead, explaining that he was battling an illness, not protracted contract negotiations.

“I was just getting so f**king annoyed with everyone writing me, asking me if I was OK because I’d been fired,” Stern vented.

“I’m minding my own business, enjoying my summer vacation,” he went on. “[A reporter] says that I’ve been fired for being too woke. In light of the Stephen Colbert firing — because the word on Stephen was that it was all part of this merger, and they fired Stephen because he’s too woke — the story then became ‘Howard Stern is fired because he’s too woke.’ I still don’t even know what that means.”

Stern added: “Then all of a sudden, I’m sitting home and everybody I know in my world, even peripherally, is writing me. ‘Are you OK, are you OK?. None of it is true, zero truth.”

“I’m very happy at Sirius,” Stern assured his listeners, the NY Post reported.

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Stern debuted on SiriusXM in 2006, not long after he signed off terrestrial radio in a blockbuster get for the nascent satellite radio network.

Last month, reports emerged that the “Howard Stern Show” was nearing its end, and with it, Stern’s mammoth $500 million contract.

Network executives said as recently as last week that they remained hopeful Stern would return.

“We’d love [for Stern] to stay. It certainly has to make sense, but we feel pretty good that we’ve done this before, and we’ll see where it goes,” said Scott Greenstein, SiriusXM’s chief content officer and president, per Variety.

CEO Jennifer Witz added: “I think he’s been core to our platform for over 20 years, so I’m confident we’ll get to the right place.”