Marc Maron Takes Blame for Longstanding Beef With Jon Stewart
As recently as July, Marc Maron was telling NPR about his lifelong comedy enemy. “For years, Jon Stewart was my nemesis; I mean, for most of my professional life,” Maron said on the Wild Card podcast. “When I was coming up as a comic, he had figured it out. I always used to think it was just because he had committed to a haircut and a way of presenting.”
It was more than resentment from afar. “We’ve had confrontations about it,” Maron confessed, “and we are not friends.”
In a new interview with Esquire’s “What I’ve Learned” podcast, the retiring WTF host takes responsibility for the long-running feud. “Jon never did anything to me,” he said. “I was just jealous. I identify it as a petty kind of (conflict), you know, fully fueled by insecurity.”
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Maron knows he screwed up by talking about the Stewart beef over the summer. “Probably not smart. And of course, it makes clickbait,” Maron said. “And it’s the same day that Jon’s doing something noble, of course, you know, standing up for Colbert.”
“Maron Still Hates Jon,” the comic said, mimicking the gist of July’s headlines. “Oh my god, the fucking timing on that.”
So what exactly was behind the conflict? In Maron’s early days, Stewart “was this smart, cute Jewish guy, you know, who was good. Some people have foresight and are disciplined careerists, and they know how to understand their talent, harness it and then figure out how to capitalize on their skill set on their terms.”
Maron didn’t fit that particular bill. “I never had any control over my talent, you know? I never knew its limitations or what it was,” he said. “I was just all in and demanding a place in the world of comedy.”
When Maron was young and floundering, Stewart was kicking ass. “Jon, he was roughly my age, was just everywhere. It never stopped. I remember when he did the MTV show, and then he had the talk show. And he had me on. But my envy of him was always so… I would just shit on him — and to his face.”
The irony? Maron wouldn’t have wanted Stewart’s career. He had no interest in hosting a talk show. When he thought about it, his main goal as a comedian was “to hold space and to speak my mind.”
Maron eventually found fulfillment on his podcast, but Stewart was never a guest. Maron approached him about appearing early on, but the Daily Show host wasn’t having it. “There’s no love here,” Stewart said, offering to talk about their differences over coffee but not to take part in a recorded conversation.
“And then (Stewart) said, ‘I’m sure what you’re doing is very creative, good luck with it.’ And just the stinging condescension of that — it didn’t help anything,” Maron sighed as if the insult was still fresh. “And now he's doing a podcast. Yeah. So full circle.”
Maybe Maron’s not ready to let go of the beef after all.
