VIDEO: Howard Stern Talks Serious Health Scare, Retirement on CBS SUNDAY MORNING

Radio giant Howard Stern reveals he suffered a serious health scare and talks about retirement, his relationship with President Trump and more in an interview with Tracy Smith for CBS SUNDAY MORNING to be broadcast Sunday, May 12 (9:00 AM, ET) on the CBS Television Network.

Watch a preview below!

Stern missed a day of work in the spring of 2017 - an extremely rare occurrence that shocked his Sirius XM listener base. At the time, he said he had the flu. Now, however, Stern tells Smith, it was something more serious. He says he had surgery because doctors suspected a spot on his kidney was cancer. It wasn't cancer.

"The weird thing about it was I couldn't admit it to the audience. I was afraid to," says Stern, who has made a career out of getting others to open up on his radio show. "I didn't want to admit that I was somehow getting older and, you know, it brought out a lot of issues. I wasn't indestructible, I'm not Superman, I'm human. And it hit me like a ton of bricks."

Stern talks with Smith about his 13 years at Sirius XM, his own experiences with therapy, his evolution on radio, and his many - sometimes controversial - celebrity interviews, which are the subject of his new book, Howard Stern Comes Again, out May 14 and published by Simon & Schuster, a division of CBS.

Why do celebrities open up to Stern?

"I think what happens is they - and I've spent a lot of time reflecting on this - you know, my whole career has been about honesty, painful honesty." And it's that honesty, Stern says, that makes his guests open up.

Among those frequent guests over the years has been Donald Trump.

"He's one of the best guests ever," Stern says. "Why? Because as a radio guest, he says whatever pops into his mind, and he understands how to play that game. Doesn't appeal to everyone, but it appeals to enough people, that style appeals to enough people, to turn them on."

Great guest, but what does Stern think of Trump as president?

"Well, listen, he asked me to endorse him, and I couldn't," Stern says. "I had to say to Donald on the phone, it was uncomfortable, 'I can't endorse you.' And I haven't heard from him since."

Moreover, Stern said the 2016 presidential election might have been different if Hillary Clinton appeared on his show.

"I was a Hillary Clinton supporter," Stern says. "I think she could have walked in my studio and changed enough minds ... I look at those numbers in a couple of key states, couple of thousand dudes in each one could have swung it differently - the electoral college - for her."

Stern also talks about his decades-long career in radio. He admits he went through a rough period personally, just as his professional status was rising, with a book, movie and fame. Several years ago, he started seeing a psychotherapist.

"I was childish, a narcissist, I wanted everyone listening to me," he says. "There was a program director when I was on terrestrial radio, they said, 'You know, one in every four cars on the Long Island Expressway in New York, the largest market in the United States, one in every four cars is tuned to you.' And all I could think about, there were three cars that weren't listening to me."

Stern says therapy has changed him, to a point. "I'm still pretty miserable," he says. "There's still an angry guy in here somewhere."

Stern's contract with SiriusXM is up in two years. He tells Smith he toys with the idea of retirement.

"But then the panic sets in," he says. "So like, okay, I've had this in my life, my entire life. I - I've been dreaming about being on the radio since I was 5. Now, we're up to 33 million paid subscriptions, and growing, and just acquired XM, and acquired Pandora. If that's not a legacy for me, it is - I - I don't know what could satisfy me. It's - that should be enough."

CBS SUNDAY MORNING is broadcast Sundays (9:00-10:30 AM, ET) on the CBS Television Network. Rand Morrison is the executive producer.

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