Howard Stern is preparing to address the swirling rumors about the potential cancellation of his show on September 2, aiming to tackle the public’s pressing questions regarding his 20-year streak on satellite radio.

According to an insider who spoke to the Daily Mail, the recent buzz about The Howard Stern Show ending this year is merely a publicity stunt, described as a ‘desperate hoax’ intended to bring Stern back into the spotlight.

As the date of his return nears, the 71-year-old shock jock hinted at the upcoming season on Instagram, captioning a post: ‘Fired? Retiring? Canceled? Bye-Bye Booey? Howard Stern will speak. Tuesday, September 2. Exclusively on @siriusxm #Howard100.’

Steve Grillo, a former staffer who published a book earlier this year reflecting on his seven-year internship at The Howard Stern Show during the ’90s, offers his thoughts on Stern’s highly anticipated return. He speculates about the show’s ‘downfall’ from having 20 million daily listeners at its peak to reportedly as low as 125,000 now.

‘Come September 2, I think everyone’s going to tune in, and then they might end up disappointed and tune out again,’ Grillo, 52, suggested.

‘Unless he opts to don a leather jacket with black jeans and declares, “I’m back, baby,” which seems unlikely since it’s been too long… could he suddenly return as the amazing rockstar everyone once listened to daily?’

The Gorilla Parts: Top Shelf Stories From the Most Famous Stern Intern Ever author, who used to be a big fan of Stern, lost his interest in the show – like many others, as statistics show – and wishes the ‘old Howard Stern’ would return.

But, it’s something he doesn’t foresee. 

Instead, Grillo sees ‘lame promos’ for the September 2 return and believes, ‘It’s such a sad, pathetic version of what happened to this man.’

‘I think that if Old Howard Stern could go and jump in the time machine, he would punch him right in the face,’ he said.

The radio personality faced criticism from fans and celebrities for becoming too ‘woke’. Kanye West described him as an ‘irrelevant old man.’

In 2023 after hearing claims that he’s ‘not good anymore,’ Stern declared, ‘By the way, I kind of take that as a compliment, that I’m woke. I’ll tell you how I feel about it. To me the opposite of woke, is being asleep.’

Grillo told the Daily Mail that Stern lost many listeners when he shared his political beliefs about now-President Donald Trump in September 2024.

‘I don’t agree with Trump politically, I don’t think he should be anywhere near the White House. I don’t hate the guy. I hate the people who vote for him. I think they’re stupid. I do. I’ll be honest with you, I have no respect for you,’ he revealed on The Howard Stern Show.

He also stated at the time that he didn’t mind losing ‘half my listeners’ who disagree with his political views and compared Trump to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. 

Grillo said, ‘People listened to whatever he said, and those people were the hard working people that wanted a change in this country and made him famous and made him rich. 

‘And he turned his back on them by saying, “If you like a certain political person, I don’t want you listening to my show… That’s why he’s got 125,000 listeners.’

He continued, ‘People cared about what he said every single day, and then he turns on them… What kind of arrogance and stupidity is that?’

Grillo claims that Stern isn’t getting the same guidance that he did when he was working with his ‘superagent’ Don Buchwald, who passed away at age 88 in July 2024 due to natural causes.

‘There were times in his career that he was guided by geniuses like Don and Mel Karmazin and, now not having those people around, and then being taken in by this Marci Turk (Chief Operating Officer) and that whole organization that he got involved in has drastically turned him into what he is right now,’ Grillo alleged.

‘Everything’s going downhill because I would guess that he doesn’t have the guidance that he did.’

The Daily Mail revealed in August that The Howard Stern Show’s 95-strong staff had been left blindsided by reports that Stern’s radio career would finish at year’s end.

A news alert received by the staff claimed the ‘King of All Media’ was on the verge of walking away from SiriusXM altogether because the station couldn’t come close to meeting his financial demands for a new contract. 

Stern’s mammoth $500million five-year contract with SiriusXM expires at the end of the year… which would end his 20-year run on Sirius since he moved to the channel in 2006. 

An insider, who spoke to the Daily Mail, revealed that the cancellation news was just a ‘desperate hoax’ since ‘they’re desperately trying to make [the news] to go viral to try to boost his numbers for his return on September 2.’

‘It was something they came up with on a viral scale to get people to tune in again. The numbers are so pathetic that they don’t know what to do,’ they continued.

The insider noted that Stern won’t be announcing that he’s retiring come Tuesday since he ‘could’ve retired 10 years ago,’ and ‘he’s not planning on retiring any time soon.’

Weighing in, Grillo told the Daily Mail, ‘Now he’s trying to develop an audience again through this whole entire awful hoax campaign of, “Did he get fired? Did he not get fired?” He’s going to come on and announce that there’s five more years of more creative b******t that he’s going to be able to do, but that’s already been in place. 

‘His contract is up in, I guess probably January… From my reliable source that’s been part of his contract since day one or the last time that they renewed his contract, that when he came to this point, he had an option for five years of freedom to do what he wants and still have his name on the door at Sirius.’

The Daily Mail has reached out to Howard Stern’s rep and SiriusXM for comment.