What happened between Marc Maron and John Stewart? Feud explained as WTF host speaks out on decade-long beef 

Prominent stand-up comedian and writer Marc Maron, in a recent interview with Esquire, opened up about his long-time conflict with television host and comedian Jon Stewart. The 62-year-old Maron, who is also an actor, podcaster, and musician, took responsibility for his feud with Stewart and discussed the matter with Michael Sebastian, the editor-in-chief of Esquire.

Marc Maron, who is widely known for hosting the popular podcast WTF with Marc Maron, which recently ended on October 13, 2025, shed light on his problematic relationship with Jon Stewart, and confessed that it was "fully fueled by insecurity" and described the years-long conflict as "petty". Marc told Sebastian:

"Jon never did anything to me. I was just jealous."

Maron went ahead and said:

"When I was coming up, he was this smart, cute Jewish guy."

Marc Maron explained that Jon Stewart belonged to a specific category of individuals, and further added, saying he was one of those people who:

"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.”

Maron, who has been a part of critically acclaimed films like Todd Phillips' Joker and Justin Kurzel's The Order, also mentioned how he resented Jon's success in the entertainment industry at the time and talked about how he once hijacked Stewart's hosting job on Short Attention Span Theater, a Comedy Central show during the '90s. Marc Maron said:

"I was just all in and just, like, demanding a place in the world of comedy. So throughout my early career, Jon, he was roughly my age, was just everywhere. It never stopped, you know? I remember when he did the MTV show and then he had the talk show and he had me on, but my envy of him was always so — I would just s--- on him, and to his face, like, ‘Who the f--- do you think you are?’"

He continued and said:

"It was just consuming because I couldn't get through a week without him being on the cover of a magazine. And for some reason, I saw him as like, ‘If I could only have my s--- together I could be more like that guy.’"

Jon Stewart refused Marc Maron's invitation to be on his podcast

During his conversation with Esquire's Michael Sebastian, Maron discussed how Stewart turned down his invitation to be on his WTF Podcast. Marc said:

"I remember I was in Portland, Oregon, and I was like, ‘Yeah, I do this podcasting and I'm kind of apologizing. I'm kind of making up with people and you know, you and I have had this thing for a while.’ "

To which Stewart responded:

‘Well, yeah, I just, you know, there's no love here.’ And I'm like, ‘Okay.’

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Marc Maron further added:

"And then he basically said, ‘Yeah, I might be willing to have coffee or something, but yeah, I'm not doing that with you.’ And then he said, ‘I'm sure what you're doing is very creative. Good luck with it.’ Just the stinging condescension of that was like, it didn't help anything. And now he’s doing a podcast, so, full circle."

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