Howard Stern has a very particular relationship with his exceptionally well-paid staffers. But this is mostly because Howard Stern is a very particular kind of person. He's brutally honesty, both about his own insecurities, and how he feels about others. He's acerbic, slightly misanthropic, and intellectual while simultaneously immature. He also loves to tease his staffers and reveal their true dynamic off-air. All through that, Howard has been extremely loyal to them.
This is why so many of his staffers, namely his long-time co-host Robin Quivers and his producer Gary "Ba Ba Booey" Dell'Abate, have chosen worked with him for decades... Yes... decades... Nearly 40 years in Gary's case. And given the non-stop ridicule that Gary has publicly faced on the show, it's clear that off-air, he and Howard are very close.
However, there is one off-air story that we're sure Gary is still a little upset about. We're talking about the time Howard totally ruined his dinner party. Here's what went down...
Howard Says 'Nobody Should Invite' Him Anywhere
In 2007, Howard ruined Gary's dinner party and made radio gold. The incident became one of Howard's most famous arguments on the air and even came up again in 2019. Of course, by then, Howard had evolved quite a bit and said that nobody should ever invite him anywhere because he's always going to use his 'critical eye'.
Using his 'critical eye' might be putting it too kindly in terms of what went down at Gary's 2007 dinner party. Gary, and his wife Mary, decided that they were going to invite all of The Howard Stern Show's biggest names to have dinner at their new home. Gary even had a Michelin-starred chef to cook for them and had a live-band on his patio. In theory, this was one of the ways he could thank Howard and his colleagues for decades of work. It was also supposed to be fun... But 'fun' and Howard don't exactly go together...
Why?
Well, Howard likes to go to bed by 8 PM and therefore is on a strict eating schedule. He also isn't the most social guy and would prefer to stay home with his wife Beth and their many adopted and fostered cats. But Howard's radio listeners adore when he gets dragged out of the house and has to be in the real world... It's downright entertaining.
How Howard Ruined Gary's Dinner Party
At Gary and Mary's 2007 dinner party were Howard, his wife Beth, writer Fred Norris and his wife, ex-Stern show co-host Artie Lange, Ronnie 'The Limo Driver' Mund, and a couple of other Stern Show staffers. Missing was Robin Quivers, who canceled at the last minute due to feeling under the weather. Still, when Robin heard what went down at Gary's party, she went on the air to voice her disapproval. Of course, all of it was played for laughs as the entire Stern staff delved into an argument about proper dinner etiquette.
Gary, who had won a private dinner with a Michelin-starred chef, told all of his guests to arrive at 7 PM for a cocktail hour followed by dinner. Howard and Beth, of course, arrived right on time and waited a significant amount of time for the other guests who arrived fashionably late. This was the first thing that irritated the ever-punctual Howard Stern.
By the time Artie Lange arrived (an hour late), Howard was starving and ready for bed. Still, Mary decided to give Artie a tour of the house and further delay dinner.
"It's a party! Have one extra drink! What are you looking at your stopwatch!?" Artie Lange yelled at Howard during the famous (and utterly hilarious) 2007 argument that lasted the entire 3-hour episode of the show.
"Dinner wasn't served until 8:30. I'm drunk, I'm tired," Howard said, defending his right to be angry.
Howard was also freezing cold as Gary had hired a band to play on the back porch and thus all of the windows and doors were open...
"Gary had a live orchestra on his patio, and Howard got up and shut the door on them," producer Jason Kaplan said, barely containing his laughter.
"These four people are out there playing," Gary explained in 2019 when the discussion resurfaced on-air. "Howard gets up. Howard's moving toward them, so it's exciting [for them]. Howard's gonna come and see them. And he slams the door on them!"
When dinner was finally served, Howard tried to rush things along so he could get home and go to bed. Of course, the Michelin-starred chef wanted to present each course with the details of the menu, ingredients etc... But Howard was hungry and started to eat before the chef could finish his explanation. Then, before dessert, Howard decided he was too tired to stay.
This caused Gary's wife Mary to cut into her homemade dessert early so that she could send a piece home with Howard and Beth. While Beth was in the kitchen with Mary, Howard stood by the door and yelled, "Beth! Beth! Come one, let's go!"
Clearly, Gary was a little hurt as he told Howard that he could have stayed until the end of dessert. But Howard insisted that he was in the right.
"There's no excuse for what he did," Artie Lange said on The Howard Stern Wrap-Up Show in 2007 in defense of Gary and Mary. "When he got up, it was just... it was abrupt and everybody was affected by it. It did affect the mood for a little while. He claims Beth agreed with it. I bet if we got Beth on the phone, she would have been mortified by what he did. And he's wrong on this one. A lot of the time he's right, but he was just wrong on this one. He should've apologized and said, 'It's my bad, I was tired.' But I'm glad Robin brought it up. I applaud her for doing that because I certainly wouldn't have the balls to do it."
While every one of Howard's staffers disagreed with what the radio legend did, each of them laughed about it. This is especially true of producer Gary Dell'Abate who knew, the very instant Howard did what he did, that his dinner party would become radio gold.