Howard Stern’s hyped return to his SiriusXM show to address intense speculation about his future was abruptly postponed Tuesday.
For weeks, The Howard Stern Show had teased that the 71-year-old would come back from his summer break on September 2 and address the rumors that the show is coming to an end. On Tuesday morning, the show posted an update on X saying, “Howard Stern will now speak on Monday, September 8,” alongside an image showing the original return date crossed out.
“The tabloids have spoken: Howard Stern fired, canceled,” one promo video for the original return date said last month. “Is it really bye-bye Booey?”
“Nobody knows what’s going on or who to trust,” it added. “Now we can reveal all the questions will be answered, all the truths will be told, by the one man truly on the inside. Howard Stern will speak Tuesday September 2.”
The Daily Beast has reached out to SiriusXM and Stern’s representatives for comment on the date being moved.
The scheduling flip-flop comes after reports that the entertainment company, where Stern has worked for almost two decades, had been planning to cancel his show once his current five-year contract, worth an estimated $500 million, expires at the end of this year.
On Tuesday, Mail Online quoted sources who said Stern expressed “frustrations over the new contract” he’d been negotiating with the company, in an email sent out to his show’s 95 employees on Monday night.
President Donald Trump, a repeat guest on Stern’s show, welcomed the rumors about the impending cancellation last week. He said, “Uh, Howard Stern... it’s a name I haven’t heard... I used to do his show, used to have fun, but I haven’t heard that name in a long time. What happened? He got terminated?”
The outlet also reports the radio host has apparently been struggling with the demands of the job as his mother, 97-year-old Ray Schiffman Stern, continues to suffer from ill health. “It rips my heart out,” Stern had previously told listeners in 2022. “I don’t want my mom to be uncomfortable. I just want to fix her.”
Meanwhile, Stern has also found himself increasingly embroiled in a feud with rival broadcaster Alex Cooper, host of the Call Her Daddy podcast, which boasts the largest female audience of any podcast currently on air.
The U.S. Sun has previously reported that Stern appears to be jealous of his fellow SiriusXM host’s success to the extent the company has had to keep them apart whenever they happen to be at the New York offices at the same time.
