Howard Stern and His Wife Are Being Sued by Their Former Personal Assistant
Leslie Kuhn worked her way from office manager at The Howard Stern Show to executive assistant to Howard, and eventually to the couple's 20,000-square-foot Southampton mansion called Oceanview, where she managed household staff, payroll, scheduling, and Beth's extensive at-home cat rescue operation.
In December 2025 she got a letter from Howard's production company thanking her for her work, confirming a bonus, and promising a raise in 2026.
By February 26 she was fired. Now she's suing.
Context Is Key
Howard Stern, 72, is one of the most recognizable figures in radio history. He built his career on raw, unfiltered, boundary-pushing content that made him both wildly successful and deeply controversial, earning him the nickname "The King of All Media" long before that title felt like an exaggeration.
He spent decades at terrestrial radio before making a landmark move to SiriusXM in 2006 — a deal reportedly worth hundreds of millions of dollars that transformed satellite radio overnight. He's been at SiriusXM ever since, hosting The Howard Stern Show and maintaining a fanbase that has followed him across every format shift his career has taken.
His wife Beth Ostrosky Stern, 53, is a model, actress, and animal rights advocate. Her passion for cat rescue isn't incidental to this lawsuit — it sits directly at the center of it.
What the Lawsuit Says
Kuhn filed her complaint on April 5 alleging hostile work environment among other things. She was hired as an office manager for The Howard Stern Show in September 2022, moved into an executive assistant role for Howard in January 2024, and by May 2024 had relocated to Southampton to manage operations at Oceanview full time.
Her responsibilities there included managing the mansion's staff, handling scheduling and payroll, and overseeing what the complaint describes as Beth's "extensive at-home feline rescue and fostering operations."
Anyone who follows Beth Stern on social media knows this isn't a small hobby — she regularly fosters cats and kittens through her work with North Shore Animal League and posts extensively about it. Running that operation inside a private residence apparently created its own set of logistical challenges.
When Kuhn was let go, the termination came from One Twelve's Vice President of Finance, who cited downsizing or position elimination — but also accused Kuhn of misconduct serious enough to damage her professional reputation. Kuhn says those accusations were manufactured, particularly pointing the finger at Beth Stern specifically.
Her attorney John J. Leonard described a work environment defined by "irresponsible and untenable animal rescue and fostering operations occurring on-site" and "massively disorganized and questionable business operations and accounting practices." He said the hostile conditions, not any misconduct by Kuhn, were the real reason she was pushed out.
The NDA Fight
This is where things get messy. When Kuhn was fired she was presented with a confidentiality agreement, a separation agreement, and a non-disclosure agreement. Her attorney is going after all three.
The confidentiality agreement is being called unenforceable — essentially fabricated and written only to protect the Sterns with no mutual protections for Kuhn. The NDA is being called outright fraudulent. Kuhn also claims the NDA was supposedly signed by her in May 2025 — except she says she never signed it and was never even presented with it. What appeared as her signature was apparently just her name typed in the same font used throughout the document.
Leonard is framing the whole thing as a coordinated attempt to silence her.
"We contend that the defendants used manufactured and unenforceable non-disclosure/confidentiality agreements as a means to leverage Leslie Kuhn into silence and deprive her of the right to defend herself from accusations detrimental to her reputation and her livelihood," he said.
Kuhn is seeking court costs and whatever additional relief the judge decides is appropriate. Her attorney made clear she fully intends to disclose details about her employment — suggesting there may be a lot more to this story that hasn't come out yet.
Representatives for Howard and Beth Stern have not responded publicly.
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