➤UPDATED 11 AM Thursday: Radio host Matt Siegel of WXKS 107.9 FM Kiss 108 FM′s “Matty in the Morning” returned to the airwaves on Thursday after abruptly signing off during Wednesday’s broadcast in the wake of being told to stop making jokes about pop star Demi Lovato’s announcement that they are non-binary. Siegel, who said he was being muzzled by the station, initially told listeners he was “ending [his] portion of the radio show,” but later said in a text, “I ain’t leaving.”
“I’m here. Good morning,” Siegel said as he opened the show on Thursday, before diving into what happened during Wednesday’s show when he appeared to quit.
Siegel said that after Wednesday’s show, he talked to his wife “at length” who said “you’re not ending your career over bleeping Demi Lovato.” Siegel said he also spoke with the company and received “full-support” and “the freedom to say what I want.”
“So I’m here,” Siegel continued on Thursday.
He continued that what bothered him most amid the rush of headlines that followed Wednesday’s segment was that many thought it was part of a “radio stunt.”
“It was no radio stunt, if you were looking at my eyes when I wanted to quit,” Siegel said. “Some people thought it was a gag. It’s not a gag.”
Siegel went on to say said that if “we live in a world where you can’t say what you want, and I’m not talking about swearing, but in traditional radio boundaries, if I can’t say what I’m thinking I don’t want to do it any more.”
“I am the biggest of all time and they said, ‘Shut up Matt — stop talking.’ Well, I hope you’re happy, because I just stopped talking. Matty out,” Siegel said during a monologue he gave after discussing a pop star’s gender pronouns on Wednesday morning’s show.
Siegel had been addressing Demi Lovato’s public announcement to identify as a nonbinary person. Soon after the segment, he referenced an apparent off-air conversation with management at iHeartRadio, which owns KISS 108.
“They pulled the plug on me and they said, ‘You cannot talk about what you’re talking about,'” he said on-air. “I like my boss personally, I do. I’m very fond of him, he’s very nice to me. It’s not personal, it’s professional.”
Local radio show host Matt Siegel draws attention after making comments about Demi Lovato https://t.co/wxbAha1OpG
— Tom Benson (@Tombenson1) May 20, 2021
The Boston Herald reports the 71-year-old Siegel has hosted his Boston morning show since 1981. The show is KISS 108’s highest performing program and regularly ranks as the No. 1 morning show in the Boston market. It was syndicated throughout New England from 2001-2009, but now only airs in the Greater Boston area.
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Siegel was inducted into the Massachusetts Broadcaster’s Hall of Fame in 2012.
“I can’t do what I just want to do, which is be a funny comic who tells it like it is about what he’s thinking,” Siegel said on-air Wednesday morning. “So I’m ending my portion of the radio show right now.”
The show has a cast of supporting characters around Siegel, who takes calls on-air and talks about current events and pop culture. Food reviewer and personality Billy Costa rides shotgun with Siegel, joined by cohost Lisa Donovan and producer Rebekah “Bex” Maroun.
“Bill, and Lisa, and Bex, and Dom I hate putting you in this position. But I was told by my boss that I cannot talk about what I want to talk about,” the host said on-air.
Siegel again referenced Lovato’s decision to go by they/them pronouns — the story that lit the match.
“By the way, it’s a joke — the whole binary thing. I don’t care what Demi Lovato does, but now we have to worry about, you might offend someone. So I basically offended right-wing people, and today I offended left-wing people,” he said.
Siegel told Boston.com in a phone interview after Wednesday’s show that “I’m against her binary thing; I think she’s a troubled woman and a lot of young people are taking her seriously and it bothers me,” stressing that “of course, it’s a comedy show, so I did it in the context of jokes.”
Though he called Lovato a “woman,” many non-binary people do not identify as either gender, so pronouns such as “her” would not accurately describe them; they is the preferred pronoun in such cases.
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