-We are back with Howard Stern.
-Thank you. Thank you. [ Cheers and applause ]
-His new book is called "Howard Stern Comes Again."
-Yes, it shows -- The title shows
that I haven't lost my juvenile nature,
that while it's a serious bunch of interviews in here,
we learn a lot about people,
and there's a lot of wisdom in the book.
I had to come up with a second-grade title, absolutely,
just so people could --
-No, it actually is -- It's got a lot of great things
in there and great stories from all different people.
I think the way to get into this is probably
to start with your scare with cancer.
-Yeah, this was crazy.
I thought I was supposed to live forever.
That was the promise my mother made to me.
She told me, if I listened to her, that I would live forever.
-Yeah.
-No, but I assumed -- My parents are 96 and 91.
My parents are still alive. [ Cheers and applause ]
Yeah. My mother is like the queen mother, you know?
I'm never going to get to be king
until she lets me have the throne.
But, seriously, when I was -- I had this health scare.
They took a look and they did one of these body scans,
and it turned out I had this thing on my cyst,
and they couldn't really see what was going on.
So they did another test and they said --
They came in and they said to me,
"Look, it's 95% chance of cancer."
And I'm like, "No way," you know.
And it really shook me. It did.
And so I freaked out, and -- -Who did you talk to?
-I talked to -- You know, it was difficult to talk to anyone.
It's almost like I didn't want to admit this to anyone.
But, of course, I talked to my wife and I talked to my kids.
-Did you talk to Robin at all? -I talked to Robin.
Robin has been battling cancer and so bravely.
And, in fact, you know, she has been remarkable.
Robin is the woman I work with on the air,
and she has been with me -- Yeah, she's great.
[ Cheers and applause ] -She is fantastic.
-She's been with me for --
We think we calculated like 30 years already.
It's such a long -- And, in radio, relationships never last.
A lot of teams break up and things, and, you know,
egos get in the way, but Robin has had my back
every step of the way.
She has been my rock.
She's -- I don't have an audience
in the radio studio with me, so she is my audience,
and she has been the laughter in my life.
You know, she makes me feel funny.
-She's got a great laugh.
-She's got a great laugh and she's brilliant.
And, so, when she got cancer, I was rocked.
I thought -- I was really in fear
that I was going to lose her.
She's doing great. But, you know -- Thank goodness.
[ Applause ] -Yeah.
-And, so, when I got this, of course, I spoke to her,
and -- I don't know.
But I didn't want to burden a lot of people.
I couldn't tell my mother.
I couldn't tell my father, of course.
You know, it just would have been
too much, and what's the point?
And, so, I went in, and they do this whole long operation
with seven robot cameras, robot arms,
and they go in, and when I woke up, the guy said,
"It was nothing.
It was a cyst." And I was like, "Whoa. Wow.
I avoided a big one."
But, really, when Simon & Schuster came to me
about writing a book, I said, "You know, maybe it's time
to reflect, and maybe part of my legacy --"
If Fartman can have a legacy.
Part of my legacy would be that I would have a collection
of these interviews that I've done that really represent,
for me, my best work.
And what I mean by that, whether it's an interview with
you or Jerry Seinfeld or Gwyneth Paltrow or Donald Trump,
which I feature in the book, all of these people
you learn something from.
You get -- Some of the people -- You too.
When you read about the dedication people have
to their careers and the climb, you know, we all think --
And I notice this with most of my guests.
We all think it's easy.
You take a guy like Steve Martin and you go,
"Oh, he's just naturally funny."
And when he starts talking about what he put into his career
and how he got it together and the work and the hours
that he put in, and I don't really care what your business
is -- I don't care if you're drummer or whatever --
people don't see that climb and they don't see the work
and the effort that goes into it.
And there's just words of wisdom in there.
Like Billy Joel said -- You know, he was talking about
this work ethic and he was talking about
how important it is to enjoy what you do.
It's the only way.
If you feel like, every day, you're getting up
and just grinding it out, your life is just miserable.
And so no matter what we do, you got to find a way
to enjoy it and to have fun.
And Jerry Seinfeld gave me an incredible class
in how to become a stand-up comic
and what the dedication is to be a stand-up comic.
-It's quite insane. -It's quite insane.
-He wakes up and starts thinking of bits.
-He said to me that he is with his family --
I know, as a radio performer and a guy who talks
and tries to make people laugh, that I am always thinking,
in the moment, "What would be funny?
And what would be good material?"
And I said to Jerry, "I find it absolutely maddening.
I find it's hard to be present and it's hard to really focus."
And he said, "I think about material
every minute of the day."
I said, "Even when you're with your wife and kids?"
He goes, "Absolutely.
I'm always looking for material."
And I said, "Isn't that a horrible way to live?"
He goes, "I wouldn't want it any other way."
And, so, I issued a warning in the book.
I said, you know, "Jerry loves it,
and I think he's being sincere,
but that's the kind of dedication it takes
to being funny and to being at the top of your game."
-Yeah.
-And, you know, one of the things I found
in writing this book --
Ozzy Osbourne is a perfect example of this.
And I know you do a good impression of him,
and you know that you can't understand Ozzy.
You know, when he's talking, you really don't.
And when I started to read transcripts of what people
had told me, all of a sudden, I realized Ozzy is a genius.
He is full of wisdom. You just don't know it.
And when he was talking to me live,
you can't understand him.
And then here's this guy in the book,
and you read it and you go, "He's brilliant."
He starts telling a story about
how he went to the Betty Ford clinic.
He was a raging alcoholic and drug addict.
And he said, "You know, my wife suggested I go there."
And the way they got him into it is -- they said,
"They're going to go and teach you to drink like a gentleman,
to have just 2 or 3 drinks, not to have 20 drinks."
-Yeah.
-So, he went in there
and he brought a couple of bottles with him.
And he went in and he met Betty Ford.
And he says, to this day, "I think it was Betty Ford I met."
And he goes -- And then he starts to describe
that he gets there, and he was absolutely livid
that they would not allow him to drink at the --
He asked Betty Ford where the bar was.
And, so, you know, in some ways, you get --
you don't get that information when you're hearing it
on the radio.
Sometimes, it's a bit difficult to hear.
-Yeah.
-And, like, so sitting with these transcripts
and talking about these interviews,
I found I was able to get things out of people.
Mike Tyson gave me the best example
of what it's like to be a drug addict.
I never understood it before. I'm not into drugs.
And he says to me, you know -- And when Mike was talking,
again, I think, vocally, I just wasn't really concentrating on
what he was saying.
And then when I read it, he was like,
"Drug addiction is like --
Have you ever gone two days without food?
To a drug addict, that stuff is food,
and when I can't get it, I need to eat or I'll die."
-Wow.
-Yeah. And he told incredible stories about Robin Williams.
He actually met Robin Williams in rehab
and was talking about how they both had the same dealer,
and that brought them together.
-Wow! -Yeah, crazy stuff.
And, so, this has been really joyous for me.
It's a celebration of, you know, I think,
some of the best interviews I've done --
every musician, every actor, or some people aren't even famous.
A guy who -- A comedian who had lied about
being in the World Trade Center during 9/11
and what it was like to live with that lie
when he got busted.
And he wanted to come on the show and explain to the audience
everything that happened.
And it was quite moving, but difficult, because I had,
you know, feelings about that.
-Of course.
Well, a lot of the book, also, is about forgiveness, too.
-Yeah, it sure is.
I've had regrets.
You know, early on in my career, I was so crazy,
I couldn't allow anybody to shine in an interview.
I felt the ratings pressure and I felt so much pressure.
And I describe that Robin Williams
was actually one of my great regrets.
He came in. I'm such a huge fan.
But there was -- I couldn't allow him to talk
and I was so caught up in being outrageous that, right away,
I just started hammering him with questions about his nanny
and that he married his nanny.
And he got very insulted, and I -- You know,
as I went through psychotherapy and I started
thinking about people, I could only think about
Robin Williams and how it went so wrong.
And I said -- I woke up one morning
and I said to my wife, "I'm calling him.
I want to apologize."
Not for him to come on the show again,
but just to say I was a jerk.
And he committed suicide that day,
and I was just like, "Oh, wow.
I wish I could have just told him
how much I appreciated him and loved him.
So there's a lot of regrets in there, too.
I try to put it all out there.
And I hope people love it and I hope people
who maybe have a preconceived notion of who I am
would read this and maybe discover something new
is going on.
We're at SiriusXM.
I have to give them a plug --
Sirius satellite -- which has been an unbelievable joy.
Jimmy, I couldn't have done this on regular radio,
what I was managing to do there.
I have a format. Nobody bothers me.
It's the most perfect radio environment ever.
So, when you're in a situation where
you can do whatever you want, this is what I wanted to do.
And I thank those guys for allowing me to do it.
-But why not give someone the opportunity
who appreciates it and who works --
I know how hard you work.
You take a stack of papers -- You take the whole week --
Sunday, it's gone, because you're just
researching your guests and who is coming on
just for your show this week so you know everything about them.
And you go, "Let's just go." You don't even have notes.
I have notes.
I talk to you for five minutes. You talk for an hour.
-I do a ton of research, and we do have notes, but I can't --
I have this weird ability.
I have somebody read my notes to me
before I interview someone like you,
and then I'm able to retain all of the information.
I don't know how that works. If I read it, I can't retain it.
If somebody speaks to me -- It's, I guess,
'cause I'm on radio, I'm into the audio thing.
-Yeah.
-And, so, I do a ton of research
and I put a lot of thought into each interview.
And what a rare opportunity.
Where can you go today and be interviewed
for an hour and a half and reach millions of people
and really say what you want to say?
I thought it was particularly touching with you.
I truly do believe you're such a great talent,
and I was -- I write this about the book.
I don't know if you want me talking about it or what,
but I talk about Jimmy.
And Jimmy was quite distraught when --
You had Donald Trump on and you had that whole incident
where you rubbed his head.
-Yeah.
-And I had said to Jimmy, "It is absolutely absurd
that anyone would lay a trip on you.
I would do the same bit."
Everyone was curious what was doing on that bird's nest,
and you wanted to sit there and see.
I thought the bit was fantastic.
And I think people tried to blame you or say,
"Hey, Jimmy got Donald Trump elected," this and that.
It was absolutely absurd,
this whole idea that you humanized him.
I didn't buy into it and I thought the bit was solid.
And you came on -- And I put it in the book about you
talk about that and you talk about your angst over that,
because --
-It was tough. -Yeah, it is tough.
You know, people criticize everything, but --
-I appreciate you being there for me,
because I didn't know who to talk to.
I go, "Who's been through what's happening right now
for me?", because the world is against you.
-I've been through it a million times.
And you know what my advice to Jimmy was?
-Yeah, you're the perfect person to call.
-It's the truth.
-I'm like, "Perfect person to call."
-You know, part of what I did on the radio --
and I try to describe this in the book --
is to be unleashed id.
I thought, "How interesting."
Not necessarily that my id was so interesting,
but the idea that I would just blurt out what was in my brain.
And when you do that, it's like walking a high-wire act.
And so, like you, all of a sudden,
you get tagged with something.
This is happening to me every day.
Either management was coming after me to say
I had spoken too much or I had done something too outrageous.
And I was sitting there, quite innocently, going,
"Oh, my God.
I just want to entertain people.
I just want to make that guy in the car laugh
who is on his way to work.
That's all I'm trying to do." -Yeah.
-And so you don't want to be indicted for it.
You're experimenting. You're doing it live.
And so it's a very difficult thing.
So, when you called me about it, I was really empathic
because I've been there and I know what it's like.
And I said to you, "It will blow over."
And I believe it did,
because I think your intentions were pure.
And -- Mariann, how fast could you get down here?
This is one of my biggest fans. [ Cheers and applause ]
You want to see how excited she is about this book?
-Yeah. Where is Mariann?
I know Mariann is here.
-Mariann calls my show every day.
[ Cheers and applause ] -Come on.
-You got to see this.
Where is she? Come here. Watch this.
Watch. This is the best. ♪♪
Quick.
-Okay, okay.
Come over here.
-Come on. Are you going to cry?
You know, Jimmy, this is amazing.
This is Mariann from Brooklyn.
She's a super-fan, and, as you can see, she's crying.
She's quite moved to meet me, which I love.
-Yeah. -I don't know.
It brings out the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh in me.
You know what I mean? Oh, Mariann.
She's really lovely.
-Here, Mariann. Put this on.
-Mariann, my God. -Oh, no!
-Mariann calls my show every day.
She is a big super-fan.
And then she starts screaming about
her excitement for the book,
but I don't know if you're in any condition to do it.
-All I need is Howard in my life!
I love you, Howard! -Look at that. That's devotion.
-Whoo!
-That's the best review of the book.
-That's it. -That's the review.
-That's the review I was waiting for.
-Howard Stern, everybody. -Whoo!
-Come on back, everybody.