Marc Maron Picked A Bad Time to Revisit His Beef With Jon Stewart
As Paramount and Skydance tighten the noose around the necks of President Donald Trump’s most prominent critics in the comedy business, podcasting giant Marc Maron just reminded us that, like Trump, he was also deeply, personally bothered by Jon Stewart’s success.
Late last week, CBS announced that they will end The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and retire the Late Show franchise in May 2026, following the expiration of Colbert’s current deal with the Paramount property. This sobering cancellation came just days after Colbert called out Paramount for paying President Donald Trump $16 million to settle a frivolous lawsuit against 60 Minutes in a Late Show monologue, describing the payment as a “big fat bribe” meant to buy the President’s approval for their acquisition deal with David Ellison’s company Skydance Media.
Weeks before the Late Show cancellation, industry insiders warned that Colbert would be an early casualty of the Paramount/Skydance merger as Ellison’s potential new regime seeks to curry favor with the White House. Now, all eyes are upon The Daily Show and its once-weekly host Stewart, who could be next on the chopping block.
Don't Miss
In the meantime, Maron just went on the NPR podcast Wild Card to imply that the downfall of Stewart would be the answer to 30 years of his prayers.
When asked by Wild Card host Rachel Martin if he’d ever had a nemesis in his long comedy career, Maron replied bluntly, “Yeah, I always have a nemesis.” The comedian and podcaster, who is retiring his popular podcast WTF this fall, explained that he uses petty personal rivalries as a motivational tool, although, “Most of that is fueled by resentment, insecurity, jealousy or whatever.”
“For years, Jon Stewart was my nemesis, I mean, for most of my professional life,” Maron said, explaining, “When I was coming up as a comic, he had figured it out. … I always used to think it was just ‘cause he had committed to a haircut and a way of presenting. But like, he was just everywhere.”
Maron almost praised his old rival, saying of Stewart, “He was the king of the thing, you know, politics, satire, or whatever. And it was just — there was a jealousy to it, but it got consuming, and it went on a long time. And, you know, he knew it, and we’ve had confrontations about it, and we are not friends.”
When Martin asked Maron if there was anything he admired about Stewart, Maron side-stepped the invitation to say something nice about the Daily Show host, instead replying glibly, “I think, over the arc of it, the fact that he’s kind of, like everybody, landed with a podcast, that’s satisfying,” referencing Stewart’s Daily Show companion podcast The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart.
Speaking about his own podcast, Maron reflected, “Early on in the podcast, a lot if it was built on me kind of trying to make amends with people I thought I had offended or that I had problems with, mostly people in my community,” then revealing, “I was like, ‘I should reach out to Jon, because we’ve got this historical problem, or at least I do, and we could work it out on the air, it would be great!'”
Maron did end up contacting Stewart to gauge interest in squashing their beef on WTF, and Stewart called Maron personally to discuss the potential peace talks. “I said, ‘Look, I’m doing this podcast thing, and there’s a lot people I’m kind of working out things with and making amends and stuff, and I thought it would be great if you and I did that,’” Maron recalled of his pitch to his old foe.
“And he goes, ‘Yeah, I’m not doing that.' He said, ‘Whatever you’re doing, there’s no love here.’ And then he said, ‘I’m sure what you’re doing is very creative, but there’s no love here,'” Maron reported of Stewart’s response. Maron then snarked, “So I guess it was pretty creative.”
By Maron’s own admission, the acrimony between him and Stewart was entirely born out of his own jealousy and insecurity, and it was mostly one-sided. Still, Maron’s decision to publicly dissect his distaste toward Stewart at a time when his “nemesis” is one of the last remaining critics of Trump in the TV comedy industry is pathetically petty and self-centered, even for the stand-up who has made an entire podcasting career out of being just that.
Maybe Maron’s just jealous that, despite his decades of political comedy caterwauling, he was never cutting enough to land on the President’s hit list himself.
