Marc Maron is finally owning up to what really fueled his years-long tension with Jon Stewart — his own insecurities.
The WTF podcast host, 62, got candid about his past rivalry with Stewart in a recent interview as “petty” and “completely rooted in jealousy.”
“Jon never did anything to me,” Maron said Esquire. “I was just jealous.”
He admitted that early in their career, Stewart represented everything he thought he wasn’t. “He was this smart, nice Jewish guy who just had it together. The people who understand their talent know how to use it and build careers on their own terms. That wasn’t me,” he said.
Maron admitted he felt out of control as a young comic, especially after taking over Stewart’s old Comedy Central gig at the Short Attention Span Theater, only to have it canceled soon after.
“I was desperate for a place in comedy,” he said. “Meanwhile, Jon was everywhere — MTV, talk shows, magazines. I couldn’t go a week without seeing his face. It drove me crazy.”
He even confessed that he took his anger out directly on Stewart. “I would just s*** at him, to his face. Like, ‘Who the hell do you think you are?'” Maron recalled. “It was all envy. I thought, ‘if I could just pull myself together, maybe I could be that guy’.”
But in retrospect, Maron realized he never actually wanted what Stewart had. “I didn’t get into comedy to be an entertainer or host a talk show,” he said. “I went into it to speak my mind. Comedy felt noble… like the only rule was to be funny, and beyond that you could do whatever you wanted.”
Still, he admitted Stewart’s confidence hit a nerve. “He was himself in a way that I wasn’t. And I was annoying to him,” Maron said. “Finally he was like, ‘I don’t have to take this crap from you.’ And quite frankly, fair.”
When asked if he ever tried to make peace, Maron said he reached out when he launched WTF. “I called him from Portland and said, ‘Hey, I’m good with people.’ And he goes, “Yeah, there’s no love here,” Maron said. “Then he added, ‘Maybe we could get coffee sometime, but I’m not doing your podcast. I’m sure it’s very creative. Good luck with that’.”
Maron laughed at the irony of that now. “And now he’s doing a podcast,” he said. “So yeah – full circle.”
