Howard Stern writes in new book about big regret, cancer scare and evolving

In his new book, Howard Stern writes about why he’s altered his shock-jock persona and delves into his regrets, including the way he handled an interview with Robin Williams and missed his chance to apologize.

It’s been more than two decades since his last book, the best-selling “Miss America.” “Howard Stern Comes Again” (Simon and Schuster, $35) is a compilation of interviews with famous guests.

It also reveals a health scare. In 2017, Stern underwent an operation to remove a cyst on a kidney that was thought likely to be cancerous. It was benign.

The 65-year-old says some of the changes to his persona stemmed from switching from terrestrial radio to SiriusXM (with a 2006 debut) and psychotherapy, which he entered in the late 1990s.

Stern says part of being “a good interviewer” means “you have to be willing to let somebody else shine, and you have to be willing to give them the spotlight, and that wasn’t so easy for me.”

He says he felt listened to by his psychotherapist “in a way that I’ve never been listened to before.”

“This was a real conversation that felt like being fed,” he says. “It was so nourishing that I thought, ‘Well, not only is this good, but maybe I gotta rethink my whole approach. It might be really nice to let other people be heard and take a step back.’ ”

His health scare also influenced his decision to write “Comes Again.”

“I freaked out, and, so it did cause me to reflect on what it is I was most proud of in my career.”

In the book, Stern says an early-1990s interview with Williams is “possibly my biggest regret.” He writes that he was trying to get Williams’ phone number to apologize when he died by suicide in 2014.

“I would say to him, ‘I’m sorry because I am such a huge fan, and you didn’t even know that,’ ” Stern says, “ ‘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.

“ ‘I was just an attacking maniac, and I want to tell you it is one of the biggest regrets of my life because I hold you near and dear to my heart. But I was in such a bad place I couldn’t allow myself to be a fan of somebody. I was so crazed about ratings and keeping the audience’s attention, I had no business conducting an interview with you like that.’ ”

Stern also writes about his unsuccessful quest to book Hillary Clinton, his pick in the 2016 election, who he thought “wasn’t connecting the way Donald Trump was.”

“You might not like him, but he knows how to speak, and I felt Trump was in a very strong position, and I happen to be a Hillary Clinton supporter, and I was like, ‘I’d like to give her an opportunity to do something a little bit out of her comfort zone but assure her that my intentions were good.’ ”

“Maybe, maybe it would’ve helped,” he says.

Snippets of Trump’s appearances on Stern’s show are scattered throughout the book. “He’s the president of the United States, so it was worthwhile to go back and take a look at some of the things he’d done on my show.”

The book includes a 2014 interview with film producer Harvey Weinstein, who has since been accused of sexual misconduct, harassment and assault and was charged last year with rape and other crimes. Stern says the decision to include him caused him to lose sleep.

Stern asked Weinstein whether he ever tried to abuse his power or hook up with actresses. Weinstein denied he ever did.

“There he is — talk about hypocrisy — saying all of the right things,” Stern says, “which means he knows what’s right and wrong.”

Read more at USA Today.