Hundreds, if not thousands, of people have revealed their deepest personal, professional, and sexual secrets to Howard Stern. Add together how humiliating each of those confessions must have been, multiply them by ten, and you still won’t have half the embarrassment of having strangers overhear your financial secrets without your knowledge on The Howard Stern Show. Judith Barrigas filed a lawsuit in Massachusetts federal court yesterday against Stern and the federal government, claiming the broadcast of her call to the IRS on May 19, 2015, violated the confidentiality of her tax information and resulted in “difficulty finding employment, anxiety, loss of sleep and irregular eating patterns.â€
As The Hollywood Reporter explains, the incident occurred when IRS agent Jimmy Forsythe called into Stern’s show on an unrelated topic, was put on hold, and answered Barrigas’s tax-related call while he waited. Once a Stern employee caught wind of the conversation, it was aired live on Sirius XM. Barrigas only found out her personal financial conversation was no longer private when strangers began alerting her via call and text, as her phone number had been included in part of the show’s audio. If Barrigas is unsuccessful in her lawsuit, at least she can make millions selling her story to Stephen King, as it is the most terrifying story ever told.