Howard Stern’s former executive assistant Leslie Kuhn is seeking a sizable payment in a lawsuit claiming the SiriusXM host and his wife, Beth, fired her due to a “hostile work environment.”
Kuhn also claims in the lawsuit that Howard Stern and his wife, Beth, used “questionable business operations and accounting practices” while she worked for them. The lawsuit also claims that the couple presented Kuhn with a “one-sided and non-mutual” nondisclosure agreement. She says it is that NDA, as well as a confidentiality agreement, that is preventing her from discussing her job and sharing the reasons behind her “manufactured” termination.
She is seeking $2.5 million in relief and wants the court to declare both the NDA and the confidentiality agreement unenforceable.
Howard Stern has finally responded to his former executive assistant’s lawsuit
According to court documents obtained by Page Six, Howard Stern has officially filed to dismiss his former executive assistant’s lawsuit against himself and his wife, Beth. In the filing, Stern and his lawyer, Ilene Farkas, call the lawsuit a “shakedown” and a”transparent sham.”
As for the NDA and confidentiality agreement, the filing claims, “The Sterns are entitled to enforce non-disclosure agreements signed by employees who enter their home and their private life.”
It had been previously reported that the NDA barred Kuhn from discussing the couple’s use of consumer products, choice of restaurants, hotels or other establishments, entertainment preferences, political affiliations, “location or contents of residences and other properties,” and “travel arrangements.”
In an attempt to demonstrate that Kuhn signed the agreements with full knowledge, Stern provided previous emails in his court filing. He claims to have disclosed this proof to his former employee and her lawyer prior to her filing the lawsuit.
Stern’s filing also disputes Kuhn’s claims of a “smear campaign” against her and that she is only seeking a “hush-money payment.”
“The reason Kuhn filed this lawsuit was to pressure the Stern Parties into making an outlandish payment to make her go away,” the filing continues. “And the sole reason Kuhn’s termination has become a matter of public record is because Kuhn and her counsel chose to publicize it by filing this lawsuit and seeking to leverage the press.”
Kuhn’s lawyer, John J. Leonard, told Page Six that he and his client are undeterred by the Stern’s filing.