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Howard Stern’s career-making “shock jock” antics did lasting damage, according to a new book.
While his stunts were often brushed off as “just a joke,” it seems that some participants are still feeling their sting decades later — with “Baywatch” star Nicole Eggert saying she wishes she could “reach out and hug” her younger self who sat in Stern’s studio.
Eggert — who appeared in a 1995 interview in which Stern criticized her outfit and demanded, “I want you in a bikini” — spoke with author Greg Prato for his “The Great American Nightmare: An Oral History of The Howard Stern Show,” saying, “I was very programmed to just go in and just let it slide off your back.”
Eggert says she felt pressured to go along because Stern’s show was No. 1 and turning down the appearance could anger the people managing her career.
She also wasn’t comfortable with some of his questions, saying the studio wasn’t a “safe environment.”
“Watching old clips of the show and seeing how many women were treated – or more fittingly, mistreated – is also shocking,” Eggert says in the book.
Rewatching her own interview decades later left her cringing. “I wish I could just like, reach out and hug that girl,” she says, adding that while she had thick skin, other women might not be as resilient.
Still, Eggert says she doesn’t regret appearing and takes pride in refusing to put on a bikini.
Meanwhile, some Stern staffers say in the book that they regret their part in the show’s more extreme moments.
Former show personality Chaunce Hayden recalls bringing in the ashes of Debbie Tay, a fan favorite who died of a drug overdose in 1995, for an on-air memorial.
Hayden says Stern pulled bone fragments from the box and joked about them on camera.
Debbie’s family later filed an $8 million lawsuit against Hayden, Stern and Infinity Broadcasting. The case settled before trial, but the final amount was never publicly confirmed.
“It was terrible,” Hayden says. “I do regret it.”
The news comes as Stern is already under fire for laying off employees and scaling back show time, while reportedly making an estimated $8,000 per minute on air himself.