Stern's Secret 'Enemy': Inside Howard's Feud With Kathie Lee Gifford & Live! Producer
Oct. 11 2017, Updated 12:30 p.m. ET
A former sidekick claims Howard Stern loathes Kathie Lee Gifford and Live! producer Michael Gelman more than fans may know, RadarOnline.com can exclusively report.
In his upcoming tell-all book The Joke Man: Bow To Stern, Stern's former head writer Jackie Martling goes into detail of the Shock Jock's showdown with his nemesis at a Shelter Island, New York restaurant.
"Saturday night, we had reservations at Sunset Beach, a popular restaurant in town," Martling recalled. "Shelter Island is a very exclusive area and the restaurant was jammed with the wealthy locals and a few celebrities. The was naturally thrilled to welcome Howard Stern and his entourage and the hostess led us to one of the long banquet tables on the tented rooftop...We had been partying all day and were very merry."
According to Martling, Stern considered Gelman to be his "enemy," and also hated Gifford.
"At the table diagonally away from us was Michael Gelman, his wife, and their party of about ten people. At the time Gelman was the producer of Live! with Regis and Kathie Lee, which Howard spent endless hours berating, mainly attacking Kathie Lee and her philandering husband Frank Gifford (what a gift to our show his dalliances had been)."
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Martling reveals that while Stern was open about his disdain for Gifford, he kept his hate for Gelman under wraps.
"Gelman was rarely, if ever, the focal point of Howard’s attacks, but he definitely represented what could gently be termed, in what I’d refer to in a friendly way, as 'the enemy.' The buzz that he was a few arm’s lengths away got to us almost immediately and it put a small amount of tension in the already rarefied air."
In 2014, after years of bashing, Stern finally apologized to Gifford for his behavior.
As RadarOnline.com previously reported, Stern's long-running feud with Gelman also put him at odds with Kelly Ripa. Last year, he criticized her work ethic when she took a week off following Michael Strahan's departure from the show.
Martling's book hits shelves on October 24.
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