Marc Maron explained that his long grudge toward Jon Stewart was rooted in his own insecurity, nothing the “Daily Show” host did.
While talking with Esquire, the comedian was asked about the grudge and how it came about. Maron said it had nothing to do with Stewart himself and was instead completely his own issue.
“I think that’s just like a – I identify it as just a petty kind of fully fueled by insecurity,” Maron said. “Jon never did anything to me. I was just jealous.
I talked about this recently, and of course it makes clickbait. And it’s the same day that Jon’s like doing something noble, of course, you know, standing up for Colbert. And then this other clickbait is like, ‘Maron still hates Jon.’
“So just jealous, because when I was coming up he was this, smart, cute Jewish guy who was good at – 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 it with their skill set on their terms,” he continued.
Maron has been making the press rounds as he wrapped up his popular podcast “WTF” after 16 years and over 1700 episodes. His final guest was former President Barack Obama. He asked how the host felt about moving on from the show. Obama even joked that moving on from “WTF” was probably “similar” to moving on from the presidency. But, he offered some encouragement about the future.
“You’ve still got a couple of chapters left,” Obama said. “Don’t rush into what the next thing is. Take a beat. Take some satisfaction looking backwards.”
Obama was certainly on the list of who could appear with Maron for the final installment, but it wasn’t revealed who would be on the episode until it dropped on Monday. For Maron, there was really no other choice.
“It became clear that the guest we needed to have was singular, in that he could address the importance of this being our final episode, but also address how we move through the world we’re living in, as frightening as it is,” Maron said.
Watch Maron’s full Esquire interview below:
