Howard Stern has admitted that he regrets the way he acted when he interviewed the late comedian Robin Williams.
The shock jock quizzed Williams—who took his own life in 2014—on the radio in the 90s, and probed him about the fact that he'd split from his wife Valerie Velardi and moved on with Marsha Garces, his son's nanny.
But he has now opened up about his regret, admitting that he was an "insecure child" at the time and "had no business having guests" on his show.
Speaking on the SmartLess podcast, Stern confessed: "The fabulous most wonderful Robin Williams came on my show and I just was ridiculously insulting."
Asked why he acted that way, he said: "Because I was trying to be funny. Robin Williams is way funnier than I am. Let him be funny.
"But being the insecure child that I was and somehow having some connection with an audience where I was intuitive and thinking I could hear when they were turning off the radios. I really had no business having guests on."
Stern explained: "I didn't have the faith that if I did an interview, that my audience would hold. I thought, if someone comes on the air and they are talking, I could hear the radios clicking off, that the only thing that might be compelling is if, you know, I was doing my thing.
"Which means I was not trusting of other people, that other people might have talent."
Robins died 10 years ago at the age of 63, and it was later determined that he had signs of a condition known as dementia with Lewy bodies.
Stern revealed in his book Howard Stern Comes Again that before Williams' death, he was trying to get his phone number so that he could apologize for the controversial interview.
In 2019, he told USA Today what he would say to the late Mrs. Doubtfire star if he had the chance. He said: "I would say to him, 'I'm sorry, because I am such a huge fan, and you didn't even know that and I didn't allow myself to be a fan of yours, and I didn't allow you to have the microphone and entertain my audience, and I learned nothing about you in the interview I did.'"
Williams was married three times—to Velardi from 1978 to 1988 and then to Garces from 1989 to 2010. He tied the knot with his third wife Susan Schneider in 2011.
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