On Monday morning, host Howard Stern fooled listeners into thinking that Andy Cohen was going to be taking over his slot on SiriusXM.
Last month, a series of rumors suggested that Stern’s deal with SiriusXM would not be renewed – information Stern happily utilized as promotion for the show.
He told listeners he would address the rumors on the September 2 episode of The Howard Stern Show. He then postponed the show’s return until September 8, suggesting that his contract with SiriusXM was not yet finalized.
Before Stern went on the air Monday, Cohen introduced himself as a prank, pretending that the channel would henceforth be known as Andy 100.
“This is, I know, not the voice that you expected to hear,” Cohen said. “I know you’re expecting a big announcement from Howard, and this is not how things were meant to go… This was supposed to be a cleaner hand off — I’m kind of winging it.”
“I can’t possibly fill [Stern’s] void,” he stated, and was sure Stern would be back on his feet in no time.
Fifteen minutes in, Stern came back on air and thanked Cohen for his participation in the bit, telling fans, “That was all masterminded by me.”
He went on to assure, “Everything you’ve been reading in the paper… is completely false.”
Stern shared that at the end of July, he had received a fake report that his co-host Robin Quivers was dead, followed by another report that he was fired from SiriusXM for being “too woke.”
Stern said, “I still don’t know what ‘woke’ means,” and speculated maybe it had something to do with his support for gay and transgender rights. He went on to explain that over the summer break, he decided to play into the false narratives about the show, using the promise of information about being fired as tune-in promos.
Stern told listeners that although he had considered retiring, he didn’t want to walk away from SiriusXM as all of the media reports purporting that The Howard Stern Show was cancelled continued to circulate. However, Stern noted that on the bright side of the fake news, he learned that there would be other companies interested in picking up his show.
