Howard Stern Wants to Be More Like Charlie Sheen

By Kiki Von Glinow Posted Mar 16th 2011 03:30PM

Howard Stern Rolling Stone Cover and Interview

He's radio's loudest beast, but Howard Stern admits that he's got more than a few thorns in his paw. The first: Stern admitted to Rolling Stone that his main problem is caring too much -- he wishes he could make like Charlie Sheen and just "say f**k you to the world."

But that just isn't Stern's style. He's neurotic to a fault.

"When that show is on, I feel like I'm calculating everything," Stern told Rolling Stone. "It's maddening. Literally, after the show, I come back to my office, I do Transcendental Meditation and I pass out. My head is on fire."

Stern admits that his need for "attention, acclaim, validation" stems from his mother instilling in him the paramount importance of reading people. On air, Stern becomes a watchdog studying his guests' every movement or tick, down to how many times they blink.

"Not to sound like Charlie Sheen, but losing was not an option ... I listened to every show back on tape."

Although this self-diagnosed "people addict" calls his neuroses "desperate," his millions of fans would surely disagree. But the self-proclaimed King of All Media is still searching for a compromise between obsessive and apathetic.

"I care what my parents think, I care what you think, I care too much," he said. "In a way, I'm in as weird a place as Charlie Sheen. He doesn't care at all and I care too much. Where's the middle ground?"

But unlike Charlie Sheen, Stern has never been interested in escaping from his work by indulging in "ladies of the night." Stern's wife of almost three years, Beth Ostrosky, should be relieved to hear that Stern would never hire a prostitute. "I'm too germ-phobic," he says.

Stern also dished to Rolling Stone that after his divorce from Alison Berns in 2001, he realized that he wasn't the playboy he (and the rest of the world) thought he was.

"I was running around, picking up women," Stern said. "Then all of a sudden, it dawned on me that I really didn't need that much sex. I just wanted somebody with me every minute. I was using women as a surrogate mother. When I tapped into that, it suddenly became very childish behavior. And really, was it so great f**king every night? They're using me for my fame, I'm using them for their beauty, and the whole f**king thing seemed empty."

This is one revelation we don't see on Sheen's horizon.

Check out Stern's past Rolling Stone covers below: