Jason Bateman has hit back at Howard Stern, who described the actor as "aggravating" during an appearance on the "SmartLess" podcast.
The comment came as Stern compared how hard he worked to make a name for himself on radio while people like Bateman are launching successful podcasts with seeming ease.
Stern paid his dues in the '70s before becoming one of the biggest names in radio thanks to his nationally syndicated program, "The Howard Stern Show."
During his appearance on Bateman, Sean Hayes, and Will Arnett's podcast, Stern noted "everyone has got a [expletive] microphone in their house, everybody is on the radio" these days, according to Newsweek.
Reflecting on his early days, Stern said it was "brutal" trying to make it in the industry, joking Bateman landed almost immediate success with his "Smartless" podcast.
"You three, you want to hear the most aggravating thing?" he asked. "Jason was over at my house, and I have mad respect for Jason
"I'm talking to Jason and I'm feeling very good about my own career and everything.
"And Jason goes, 'You know man, it's crazy, we like, started this thing out of our basement, like a radio show.' I'm like, 'Oh here we go, cool' and he goes, 'Yeah, we started this thing and it's just the three of us sitting around and we talk and we just crack each other up. I don't know what's going to happen with it man, but they are telling me it's like the biggest thing ever,'" he added.
Bateman was quick to interject.
"Bull [expletive] I didn't say that," he piped up as they all laughed.
Continuing with his story, Stern said, "So I go, 'Oh this is great, I spent my life begging people to put me on the radio.'
"You had to work on your voice this and that, you had to work on the content, you had to make sure you get people — he's clowning around!"
Stern noted how hard it was at the time to build gigs and keep audiences. It was closely monitored how many people were tuning out.
"When I was on the radio, it was brutal," he said. "In order to get an audience and to maintain an audience, every 15 minutes they would take the ratings. It isn't like this where you go, you know, we have a lot of people listening. There could be three people listening to this, nobody knows, nobody cares."
But, he continued, "you are on the radio and every 15 minutes they take ratings and what are you going to do to hold people's attention?"