Howard Stern has no finally responded to his former assistant’s claims of a hostile work environment against him and his wife, Beth Stern.
Leslie Kuhn, who formerly worked as an assistant for the Sterns, filed suit against the couple on April 5, alleging that she was fired and experienced a “hostile work environment,” according to a complaint previously obtained by PEOPLE.
Kuhn claims the Sterns presented her with confidentiality and non-disclosure agreements before and at the time of her firing, and is seeking compensation for the “costs of this action” and other relief the Court “deems just.”
On Wednesday, April 29, attorneys for the Sterns filed a motion to dismiss Kuhn’s suit and in the motion obtained by PEOPLE, the Sterns’ attorneys describe Kuhn’s complaint as a “thinly veiled attempted shakedown.” The filing also claims that Kuhn “hatched a plan to extract a staggering ‘hush-money’ payment” from her former employers.
In Kuhn’s initial filing, she claimed that she was first hired as an office manager for SiriusXM’s The Howard Stern Show in September 2022 and then became Howard’s executive assistant in January 2024. Then, in May 2024, she alleges that the couple asked her to move to Southampton, N.Y., to help with their 20,000-square-foot mansion, according to the complaint viewed by PEOPLE.
Then, in December 2025, she claims that she received a letter from Howard’s production company, One Twelve, thanking her for her work, confirming that she would receive a monetary bonus, and informing her that she would receive a raise in 2026.
However, her “employment was allegedly terminated for cause” in late February, per Kuhn’s filing. “Kuhn contends that her termination was the result of, among other things, a hostile work environment and enablement of that hostile work environment,” Kuhn’s attorney, John J. Leonard, claimed in the complaint.
Kuhn also claims she did not sign a non-disclosure agreement or confidentiality agreement, alleges that the NDA is “fraudulent and unenforceable.”
In the filing, attorneys for the Sterns insist that Beth and Howard never spoke negatively of Kuhn in public, and that the “only reason Kuhn’s termination has become public is because she and her counsel chose to file this sensationalized lawsuit announced her termination to the world and then deliberately fanned media attention.”
“Attempting to cloak herself as a silenced victim, Kuhn pretends she filed this action to ‘protect her reputation’ and defend herself against ‘accusations’ defendants made. Nonsense,” the filing continues, adding, “Kuhn does not and cannot allege that defendants ever disclosed, or even threatened to disclose, any information about her.”
Howard Stern’s attorney also issued a statement to Entertainment Weekly, saying, “We are not going to play this out in public. The Sterns are entitled to enforce nondisclosure agreements signed by employees who enter their home and their private life, and they have filed a motion to address the lawsuit and the conduct of Ms. Kuhn and her lawyer.”
