The artist formerly known as “Fartman” is sick of all this royal hullabaloo — but
what does shock jock legend Howard Stern think really deserves media coverage?
Howard Stern has been and will always be considered the ultimate shock jock on the
airwaves. That said, Stern has shown a much softer side in recent years. In an interview
with Rolling Stone back in 2019, Stern admitted that psychotherapy has helped him change his ways.
"I'm a lot happier now."
Stern also said that he wanted to "evolve"
but still stay relevant for his audience. Stern told the outlet:
"I had to change when I got to SiriusXM. I couldn't do an interview every day with a
porn star. You can do that [stuff] here. You can wipe people's doody if you want. You can vomit
on women if you want to, or men, whatever your thing is. They don't care. It's the Wild West."
And while Stern is no longer trying to shock the socks off of everyone,
he did make a rather controversial statement about none other than Queen Elizabeth II
and her tragic death. Plainly put, Stern doesn't want to hear about Queen Elizabeth and her death
anymore. That's not because he doesn't respect the late monarch, but because of all the non-stop
media coverage surrounding it. During The Howard Stern Show, Stern told his co-host Robin Quivers:
"It's weird traditions and everything and I'm like, 'Jesus, enough with the queen!'
I mean, it's America, we don't have a queen."
He also added that one of the reasons why he thinks the media should mute their
coverage on the queen's funeral is because there are more important matters on hand,
like all of the classified documents that were found during the FBI raid
of Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate. Stern added,
"The queen was a nice lady, I guess. My whole life the queen has been the same queen and
there's a tradition there and she did her duty to her country[.] I get it, I get it, I get it,
but we gotta get back to Trump, where those papers are that they found at Mar-A-Lago."
Yes, this is the same Stern who once had Trump as a guest on his talk show back in 1997.
In the interview, Trump said that he could have "nailed" Princess Diana, with Stern
asking the real estate mogul if he would have made her get tested for HIV before dating her.
"She had the height, she had the beauty, she had the skin.
The whole thing. She was crazy. But, you know, these are minor details."
For a radio personality whose alter-ego used to be Fartman, Stern has certainly changed his
perception on things, right? Perhaps, however, the massive amount of media coverage surrounding
the death of Queen Elizabeth II isn't the only thing that’s bothering Howard Stern.
Shortly after Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's bombshell interview with
legendary talk show host Oprah Winfrey, Stern once again took to his Sirius XM radio show
and took a swipe at the royal family as well for what he perceived as Markle's naïveté.
Stern told his co-host Robin Quivers on a March 22, 2021 episode of his radio show:
"I guarantee you that there are people in the royal family who are racists. [...] This idea that
Meghan is all freaked out that there are racists in the royal family... She's awfully sheltered
[...] I mean, honey, wake up, it's the real world out there. There's tons of racism on every level."
Despite Howard Stern's on-air complaints, the coverage of the Queen's death shows
no signs of slowing down. Meanwhile, King Charles III declared September 19, 2022,
the day of Queen Elizabeth's funeral, to be both a bank holiday and a national day of mourning.
The king said in his first address as monarch:
"In a little over a week's time, we will come together as a nation, as a Commonwealth
and indeed a global community, to lay my beloved mother to rest.
In our sorrow, let us remember and draw strength from the light of her example."
Fortunately, those that want to watch the funeral will be able to do so.
Cameras will be allowed inside of the royal church and the coverage will air on BBC One,
BBC News, Sky News, and ITV. As for those in the United States, viewers can tune into NBC News,
NBC News Now, CNN, ABC, and Fox News. As for Howard Stern's complaints about
the media's wall-to-wall coverage of the Queen's death? Well, seeing as this, quote,
"annoying" coverage is just getting started, the shock jock will just have to deal with it.