Matty Out… And Already Back In
• Boston radio icon Matt Siegel, who has hosted Matty In The Morning for 40+ years at iHeartMedia Top 40 WXKS (Kiss 108)/Boston created a major media shockwave Wednesday morning when he apparently quit on the air following his commentary about Demi Lovato‘s announcement that they were non-binary… and a tense follow-up call from management reportedly telling him to drop the subject.
According to a poor quality audio segment posted to Twitter Thanks, Mike Saccone), the 71-year-old Siegel recounted his conversation with his unnamed boss, saying, “He said he doesn’t want me talking about this. Today I was anti-wokeness and I can’t do that, so basically, what I’m told is, I can talk about light, funny things like where the Jonas Brothers are going to be, but I can’t do what I really want to do, which is just be a funny comic and tell it like it is, so I’m ending my portion of the radio show right now. I don’t know… I just want to say I love my listeners… It has been a hell of a run, but I think it’s coming to an end.” Siegel continued, “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 we might offend someone, so basically I offended right-wing people and today I offended left-wing people. So basically what they want me to do is to be, you know, a lightweight show. We have that in the market. We have Magic; we have Mix. We have radio stations that don’t offend anybody.
Rounding third and headed for home, Siegel exclaimed, “This was the Matty In The Morning show. The No. 1 radio show in the history of Boston radio! OK? Bigger than Jess Cain and Dave Maynard and Charles Laquidara, and all of the radio giants in Boston. 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.” After an awkward silence, the rest of the show was “music-intensive.”
Fast-forward several hours later, during a telephone conversation with Boston.com, it was apparent that the incredible tension of the morning had lessened considerably, as a much calmer Siegel said, “There’s no ill feeling between me and my boss or me and my company, none. They’re doing their jobs. I get it. They got a lot of heat this morning, people complaining about things I said on the air. He doesn’t want me to be fired. His heart was in the right place.”
Ultimately, Siegel attributed his on-air outburst to a weak moment, as he said, “Let me put it to you this way: Do you think I’m the only one that’s had it with the negativity in the world we live in during this pandemic? Do you think I’m the only person that’s snapped? I doubt it.” Siegel added, “You know what’s gonna happen? Around 3 or 4 this afternoon, I’ll go, ‘Wait a minute, am I really walking away from millions of dollars? I don’t really care that much.’ Cooler heads will prevail, I’m sure. They made it very clear that they don’t want me to leave.”
