‘Worse than Ellen DeGeneres’: Howard Stern exposed by ex-employees

American talk show host Howard Stern is the latest celebrity to find himself embroiled in a controversy.

Not long after Ellen DeGeneres’s controversy of a toxic workplace environment was somewhat settled, former employees of the Howard Stern Show, claimed that the radio star is actually much worse than the comedian.

Scott Salem, a longtime engineer of the show had created a GoFundMe page while his wife was battling non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. And instead of helping him, he was asked to keep the show as well as Stern’s name away from his crowdfunding page.

However, even without Stern’s name, die-hard fans of the show helped Salem bag $73,000, which the talk show host wasn’t too pleased about.

According to New York Post, Salem was then moved to another floor and was also eliminated from the show scripts.

He lost his job in 2019, a year after his wife died, putting his 33-year career with Stern to an end.

Prior to his dismissal, during the 2019 staff’s Christmas party, Salem’s new girlfriend tried to record some comments by Stern which then resulted in a dispute with COO Turk.

As per the Post, an on-air personality who worked with Stern, John Melendez said: “This has really bothered me. It’s really sad. His wife ends up dying. Howard doesn’t even go downstairs and offer Scott his condolences. Everyone falls from grace with Howard.”

A longtime former aide of the host, Artie Lange also tweeted in 2018: “For the record, Scott never bad mouthed Howard to me. Prob cuz he’s afraid & classy. But I’m Unafraid & classless So I say. Shame on u Howard. Ask yourself why all of ur ex loyal servants hate u! Just sad.”

Another industry insider said: “Worse than Ellen [DeGeneres].”

Steve Grillo who was an unpaid intern on the show said working for him was like slave labour.

“From 1992 until 1997, I was just working for free still as an ‘intern.’ That’s what my title was. But I was definitely a producer. The amount of responsibilities I had was through the roof,” he said.

“That’s slave labor. I was a slave. You can’t have people work 60 hours a week and not pay them,” he added.