Howard Stern Owes Freddie Prinze Jr. $1 Million for Comments About Sarah Michelle Gellar Marriage
“Shock jock” Howard Stern built an entire brand around being willing to scream things that other people wouldn’t dare whisper. While the over-the-top behavior helped earn Stern infamy, it has had some serious consequences.
Many of those consequences are to his reputation. His name has become synonymous with a specific brand of high-profile bullying that was markedly more popular in the 1990s and early 2000s. It seems clear that modern-day pop culture fans will not tolerate it, and Stern’s popularity has taken a steep nosedive.
Some of the consequences, though, have been more concrete. Comments about Sarah Michelle Gellar’s marriage to Freddie Prinze Jr. have landed Stern $1 million in debt to Prinze — but will he ever pay up?
What did Howard Stern say about Sarah Michelle Gellar and Freddie Prinze Jr.?
Sarah Michelle Gellar and Freddie Prinze Jr. were the ‘it’ couple of their day. Both were incredibly popular stars as teens and young adults, and they met on the set of I Know What You Did Last Summer, a famous horror flick that helped solidify their fame. Their budding romance was the topic of tabloid covers for years, and they were #CoupleGoals before hashtags were a thing. While Prinze admitted he initially thought they were “incompatible,” their differences ultimately created a “perfect balance.”
Back in 2001, Howard Stern had some opinions about the pair’s love that were quite dismissive. He joked that they would spend a brief period of time sleeping together before going their separate ways. In fact, the shock jock was so confident in his opinion that he put $1 million on the line. “In about 10 years, you’re gonna hunt me down and go, ‘Howard, I owe you money,'” Stern said to Prinze in an interview on The Howard Stern Show at the time, now available to be seen on YouTube.
Did Howard Stern hold up his end of the bet?
Obviously, Howard Stern was wrong. Sarah Michelle Gellar and Freddie Prinze Jr. have had a long-lasting marriage that has been remarkable for its lack of drama and apparent happily-ever-after vibes. The couple has managed to stay out of the spotlight for any scandal or speculation about their marriage, and they keep their family of four away from the prying eyes of the media except in small glimpses of their happy life together.
Rather than going to Stern to pony up his $1 million, Prinze has taken to the media to call out Stern for not holding up his end of the bargain. Speaking with AOL Build in 2016, as seen on YouTube, Prinze joked that Stern had “not paid that bet” while staring into the camera and (ostensibly) speaking directly to Stern himself.
Lest you think time has caused Prinze and Gellar to forget what they’re owed, a more recent quip in the spring of 2022 saw Gellar take to Instagram to remind Stern of his debt. As Huffington Post reports, she wrote, “I think you owe us.”
Sarah Michelle Gellar and Freddie Prinze Jr. have been married for two decades
After meeting in 1997, the young couple tied the knot in 2002. While Howard Stern has certainly done plenty to earn contempt over the years, doubting that Sarah Michelle Gellar and Freddie Prinze Jr. would last wasn’t an extreme reaction. At the time, many saw the young couple as just another blip on the Hollywood radar.
However, Gellar and Prinze have proven all the doubters wrong and have built a solid life together. While neither has seen the kind of mainstream popularity they had during their heyday, their quieter life as parents has still left them time to stay active as actors. Gellar’s IMDb profile shows upcoming appearances in two TV series (Hot Pink and Wolf Pack), but her top role remains her time as Buffy in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Prinze has also seen steady if quiet appearances and voice work over the year, but his most notable appearances all came from the late 1990s and early 2000s.
While their biggest roles may be behind them, the pair amassed an impressive fortune that has given them the comfort to work and parent however they’d like. According to Celebrity Net Worth, Gellar and Prinze are worth an estimated $30 million.
