Bruce Springsteen Walked Into Howard Stern’s Studio and Made Him Cry on Air For the First Time Ever

Howard Stern has spent more than four decades on radio. He has interviewed presidents and rock stars, survived FCC battles and very public divorces, reinvented himself multiple times, and made a career out of being the person who is never, ever caught off guard. The man who once said anything to anyone, without flinching, without sentiment.

And then Bruce Springsteen sat down across from him, picked up an acoustic guitar, and played “Thunder Road.” Live. In the studio. Just the two of them.

Howard Stern cried. For the first time in his career. On air.

I

October 31, 2022 — The Interview Howard Called “The Greatest He Ever Did”

It had taken years to get Springsteen into that chair. Howard had been chasing the interview for longer than he publicly admitted. When it finally happened — Halloween 2022, Stern’s first time back in his SiriusXM studio after broadcasting from his basement throughout the entire pandemic — it was more than two hours long, uninterrupted, and unlike anything else on radio that year.

The conversation started where all great Stern interviews start: not with the press release, not with the album, but with the real stuff. Springsteen talked about his obsessive perfectionism — how entire years could pass without a song, followed by an album written in three weeks. “Writing is really hard, and you’re failing,” he told Stern. “Ninety percent of the time, you’re writing stuff that’s mediocre or worse.”

“I’ve gone two years without writing a song, and then written an entire album in three weeks.”— Bruce Springsteen to Howard Stern, 2022

Then came the moment that nobody in the room was prepared for. Springsteen talked about Clarence Clemons — the Big Man, the saxophonist who had been his bandmate and one of his closest friends for four decades. Clemons suffered a stroke in June 2011 and passed away days later. Springsteen had never spoken about his final visit in detail — not like this, not anywhere.

He described going to the hospital knowing Clarence was going to go. Knowing there was nothing left to say with words. So he brought his guitar instead.

What Bruce Said — Verbatim

“I had a feeling he could hear me because he could squeeze your hand. I knew that he was going to die, and so I just brought the guitar in and I strummed ‘Land of Hope and Dreams.’ It’s about passing over to the other side. It’s about life and death. His brother was there. Jake, his nephew, was there. And there were a few other people. But it was just a little tiny space.”

The room on the Stern Show went quiet. Howard — who has made his entire career out of filling silence — said almost nothing. He let it sit. That restraint, that instinct to know when to stop talking, is something that separates Howard Stern the interviewer from nearly every other host in American media.

Then Bruce picked up the guitar and played “Thunder Road.” Acoustic. Just him. And Howard Stern, King of All Media, shock jock, man who said he could never be moved on air — started crying.

“You finally got me to cry on the air,” Howard said afterward. “It’s the first time ever. Wow.”

After the interview, Howard told his listeners it was “the greatest” interview he had ever done. He called Springsteen personally. They agreed to release the full two-hour session on HBO — the first time a Stern interview had ever aired on the network. It ran on November 27, 2022, right after episode five of The White Lotus. People watched. A lot of people.

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II

October 23, 2024 — The Boss Comes Back. This Time With The Whole Band.

Two years later, Springsteen returned. And this time he didn’t come alone.

The E Street Band — minus Steven Van Zandt, minus most of the horn section, but with Jake Clemons on saxophone — filled the SiriusXM studio. It was the first time Springsteen had performed live on radio with his band since 1974. Fifty years. The room was electric in a way that radio rarely manages to be anymore.

The 2024 visit was looser, funnier, less weighted than the first. Springsteen came in promoting the Road Diary documentary on Disney+ and Hulu, and the conversation ranged from his songwriting catalog sale to Patti Scialfa, who joined them on air to talk about what it actually means to be married to — and work alongside — the most famous rock star in America.

“I’m only The Boss for three hours. And then I surrender the title, happily.”— Bruce Springsteen on his marriage to Patti Scialfa, 2024

Howard asked Scialfa if she ever calls Bruce “The Boss” — at home, privately, in a romantic context. The studio dissolved into laughter. “Never. I don’t think I’ve ever called him that,” she said. Bruce grinned like a man who spends three hours being The Boss and the rest of his life being just a husband, and is genuinely grateful for both.

There was also a moment of accidental comedy when the band paused mid-song during “Spirit in the Night,” Howard mistook it for the end, started talking — and the band came back in. Howard later admitted he felt “humiliated.” Springsteen loved it.

And for the second time, the interview was something more than a promotional appearance. It was a document of a friendship — between two men in their 70s who had both spent their entire lives performing for other people, finally just talking to each other.

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III

Why These Two Interviews Are the Best Thing Howard Has Done in 20 Years

There is a version of the Howard Stern story where his legacy is “the shock jock who cleaned up his act.” The FCC battles. The dirty humor. The marriages falling apart on air. The reinvention into a gentler interviewer who talks about his cats and his therapy. That version is not wrong, exactly. But it misses something important.

The Springsteen interviews are proof that Howard Stern’s instincts as an interviewer — the real ones, the ones built over 40 years — are completely intact. He knew when to push. He knew when to stop. He knew that the Clarence Clemons story needed space and silence, not a follow-up question. He knew that making Bruce feel comfortable enough to say “I’ve gone two years without writing a song” was worth more than any soundbite you could plan in advance.

A journalism professor told Poynter in 2025 that Stern’s interviewing method influenced an entire generation of podcast hosts and long-form interviewers. The Springsteen sessions are the clearest evidence of why. They are not interviews in the traditional sense. They are conversations between equals — two men who have both spent their entire lives being famous for something that also requires enormous vulnerability to do well.

Howard Stern made Bruce Springsteen feel safe enough to talk about playing guitar at Clarence Clemons’ deathbed. And then Bruce Springsteen made Howard Stern cry on radio for the first time in his career.

That’s not a talk show. That’s something rarer.