Howard Stern Leaning On Former Air Force Member To Find Staff Mole Who Leaked Contract Details

Howard Stern is deter­mined to shut down any leaks about his pri­vate affairs and is going to great lengths to achieve this.

Amid spec­u­la­tions about the media personality’s con­tract with Sir­iusXM not being renewed, he is now track­ing down the insid­er expos­ing details from his team.

In Decem­ber 2020, Stern signed a five-year exten­sion with the media com­pa­ny, secur­ing his show through the end of 2025. While no renew­al has been announced, Stern has cleared the air that he is not leav­ing radio any­time soon.

Howard Stern Hands Over Investigation To Discover Company’s Mole To Army-Trained Personnel

In a bid to dis­cov­er the mole in his radio empire, which he has been run­ning for over two decades, Stern has deployed the skills of his pro­duc­er, Memet Walk­er, a for­mer U.S Air Force Air­man trained in inter­ro­ga­tion tac­tics, per the Dai­ly Mail.

Exec­u­tive pro­duc­er Gary Del­l’A­bate raised con­cerns that a staff mem­ber was spilling exclu­sive infor­ma­tion, includ­ing talk from a team-build­ing gath­er­ing at a Spin ping-pong bar in Man­hat­tan.

Walk­er, who joined the show in 2015 after serv­ing in the Force from 2006 to 2010, has now begun lead­ing the inqui­si­tion. At the same time, he has denied accu­sa­tions from col­leagues sug­gest­ing he might be the leak­er.

Howard Stern’s Comeback On The Radio Included A Shocking Prank 

The inves­ti­ga­tion comes on the heels of the on-air per­son­al­i­ty teas­ing fans by play­ing into the can­cel­la­tion rumors dur­ing the Sep­tem­ber 8 episode.

As The Blast report­ed, when lis­ten­ers tuned in, they were met with a dif­fer­ent voice, sug­gest­ing that Stern’s run on the show had actu­al­ly come to an end.

“This is not the voice that you prob­a­bly want­ed to hear, but it is I, Andy Cohen, and this is our first day broad­cast­ing on Andy 100,” the “Bra­vo” host teased. Cohen con­tin­ued pre­tend­ing that he was tak­ing over, and there was meant to be a prop­er han­dover, but things didn’t work as expect­ed.

Even when an upset lis­ten­er aired his griev­ance over Cohen’s sud­den appear­ance, he didn’t break char­ac­ter. How­ev­er, Stern soon stepped in and announced it was all a joke.

Is ‘The Howard Stern’ Show Nearing Its Final Days?

Regard­ing the rumors about Stern’s depar­ture from radio, he final­ly addressed it, hint­ing that he and his team are still in talks with Sir­iusXM on the best way for­ward.

Stern admit­ted that he chose to see the light amidst the chaos and used it to pre­pare for an excit­ing return. He fur­ther reas­sured fans that his time was far from over, as he declared he had no issues with the broad­cast­ing com­pa­ny.

As for his absence on Sep­tem­ber 2, the author attrib­uted it to his ill health. The for­mer “America’s Got Tal­ent” judge had been slat­ed to return that Tues­day but was forced to pull out at the last minute due to his con­di­tion.

Andy Cohen Says The Joke Was All Howard Stern’s Idea

Cohen has since spo­ken about his role in the stunt, say­ing that he was only the wing­man fol­low­ing Stern’s instruc­tions. 

As The Blast report­ed ear­li­er, the “Watch What Hap­pens Live With Cohen” pre­sen­ter con­fessed to enjoy­ing see­ing major out­lets like Vari­ety and the Asso­ci­at­ed Press run with reports of Stern’s sup­posed exit from the net­work.

He added that fans’ reac­tions made the sit­u­a­tion even more intrigu­ing, point­ing out that while some found the news amus­ing, oth­ers were sim­ply furi­ous.

Insiders Claim The Rumors Were Staged  

Mean­while, sources have alleged that the buzz about Stern quit­ting Sir­iusXM was noth­ing more than a stunt by showrun­ners to gen­er­ate hype around his come­back, with some even brand­ing it a “des­per­ate hoax.”

“They’re des­per­ate­ly try­ing to make this thing to go viral to try to boost his num­bers for his return on Sep­tem­ber 2,” the source dis­closed, accord­ing to The Blast.

The infor­mant added, “His num­bers are down so low that they’re des­per­ate­ly try­ing to make him rel­e­vant and get peo­ple to tune in to see what he’s going to say about get­ting ‘fired’ from Sir­ius.”

Pre­vi­ous reports state that Stern’s lis­ten­er­ship had dropped dras­ti­cal­ly, from about 20 mil­lion dai­ly lis­ten­ers to just 125,000. The source claimed the rat­ings were “so pathet­ic” that the pro­duc­ers have been left scram­bling to decide how to han­dle the sit­u­a­tion.