Wendy Williams inadvertently set off Howard Stern earlier this year, when — while plugging his upcoming first book in 20 years Howard Stern Comes Again — the daytime host suggested that the one-time shock jock had gone “so Hollywood.” Her remarks weren’t intended to be hurtful or insulting, and she even prefaced them by praising Stern as one of the people who got her where she is today. That’s just Wendy Williams being Wendy Williams, after all.
Yet, when Stern was made aware of her comments, out-of-context and live on-air, he didn’t take them, uh, well. After admitting that he was about to launch into “some shit I’m going to regret,” Stern went off on a diatribe, calling Williams a “jealous bitch” and “a nobody,” and he brought up her recent health issues and rumors of her husband’s infidelity. (She has since filed for divorce.)
In a lengthy profile with The Hollywood Reporter last week, however, Stern admits that he did indeed regret his behavior, and he acknowledged that it was himself at his worst and that he’s since pulled the rant from rerun airings:
“That was me at my worst. I thought she was saying that I was a piece of shit and I sucked. But as [I hear it] now, I don’t see it as an offense at all. If ‘Hollywood’ means that I’ve evolved in some way and the show has changed, then yeah, she hit the nail on the head.”
Williams addressed Stern’s apology on Monday’s show during her “Hot Topics” segment. “Howard, you know what, if you never apologized to me ever in your life, you would still be one of the most influential people shaping my career,” she graciously acknowledged. “You and Oprah — that’s it.” She then went on to suggest that the reason he got so fired up was because he “knew she was right.” She continued:
“And the idea that you apologized, and you went on the air and ripped me a new one for no damn reason because I knew I was right. And then in this article in Hollywood Reporter, he goes on to say that he loves me — I forgot how he put it, but it was a thick article — that he loves me and that I might’ve seen something in him that maybe he didn’t see, or something like that, and that he’s kind of embarrassed for ripping me on the air, so he’s pulled that from the archives. You will never hear that on repeat.
I love him. And my heart was so broken when he was fighting with me ’cause I wasn’t fighting with him.”
Given Stern’s penchant for wanting to make things right in his softer, older years, it seems like only a matter of time before he invites Williams onto his show, so the two longtime media personalities can really hash things out.