America's Got Talent's Howie Mandel Has A Sketchy Past

Summary

• Howie Mandel faced a lawsuit for damages caused during filming a show he executive produced.
• Mandel angered Canadian comedians by replacing a radio channel featuring their work.
• Fans criticized Howie for interviewing controversial figures on his podcast without pushback.

When fans watch America's Got Talent, they often wonder about things like what happened to the past winner, Terry Fator, and who the richest judges are. On top of that, AGT fans are likely to wonder about the rules that people have to follow to audition on Simon Cowell's shows.

However, most AGT fans don't think about things like the fact that ABC once banned one of Howie Mandel's jokes. The reason for that is that Howie seems far too lovable on AGT for him to have even been embroiled in controversies. However, the truth of the matter is that Howie has a scandalous past that most AGT fans don't know about.

Howie Mandel Was Accused Of Being Responsible For Destroying A Restaurant

After many years in the comedy business, Howie Mandel became an expert at entertaining the masses. As a result, it made sense that many people in the television business have wanted to work with Howie over the years.

After Howie began judging America's Got Talent, he became a notable television star. That clout gave Howie the chance to executive produce a show that he clearly believed in called Deal with It which aired in 2013 and 2014.

A simple hidden camera comedy show, executive producing Deal with It should have been a pretty simple experience for Howie. Unfortunately for Howie, however, he wound up being sued for a lot of money due to Deal with It.

In January 2014, TMZ reported on the details of the lawsuit Howie was facing. Based on that report, Howie and the other people named in the lawsuit were being sued for $103,408.

In October 2023, a former America's Got Talent: Extreme contestant sued the show's producers, Fremantle and Syco Entertainment. According to Today's article about the lawsuit, Jonathan Goodwin sued the show claiming that relaxed safety standards caused him to be severely injured. Jonathan sued the show's producers for more than $25,000 after he was “crushed and burned by two exploding motor vehicles”.

According to the lawsuit, a Deal with It segment was filmed in a restaurant called Cowboys and Turbans. The owner of the business claimed that he was assured that his restaurant wouldn't be damaged during the production process.

However, the restaurant owner claimed that the show that Howie executive produced didn't live up to their promises at all. In fact, based on the restaurant owner's claims, it is hard to imagine how a show could do that much damage without doing it intentionally.

According to the restaurant owner, a Deal with It actor was instructed to destroy dishes and jump up and down. As a result of this scene, the owner claimed that the expensive Moroccan tiles the actor jumped on were destroyed.

The owner also claimed that damage was done to a Yamaha piano, furniture, and patio heaters by Deal with It's production process. It is important to note that Howie was specifically named in the lawsuit.

Even though the lawsuit was filed in 2014, it is unclear what the ultimate result of the legal matter was.

Howie Mandel Was Called Out By Canadian Comedians

Since Howie Mandel has been famous in America for decades, some observers don't realize he is Canadian. Born and raised in Canada, Howie has repeatedly spoken about how proud he is of his homeland. However, there was a point when some of Howie's fellow Canadians were pretty angry with him.

In 2019, it was announced that Howie made a deal to help run a Sirius XM Canada channel dedicated to Just For Laughs comedy segments. Since the Just For Laughs comedy festival is a staple in Canada, Howie may have expected the news to be celebrated.

When and where was Howie Mandel born, according to Biography?

However, as a February 2019 Montreal CTV News article revealed, however, the news quickly created a backlash. More specifically, Howie's deal deeply upset many Canadian comedians, a group of people he is a part of.

The problem was that Howie's satellite radio channel was set to replace another one called Canada Laughs. The previous radio channel allowed many Canadian comedians who were trying to build their careers to make money. On top of that, Canada Laughs importantly gave relatively unknown Canadian comedians a place to get some exposure.

At one point, Howie tried to address the backlash by stating other Canadian comedians would be exhibited as part of the channel. However, Howie also stated that the channel would no longer solely feature Canadian performers. After that failed to calm the backlash, Sirius XM Canada backtracked and announced the channel would continue to run 100% Canadian content.

Howie Mandel Angered Many Vanderpump Rules Fans

Like a lot of other comedians, Howie Mandel has become the host of a podcast called Howie Mandel Does Stuff. Howie's podcast, which he co-hosts with his daughter Jackelyn Shultz, has gotten a lot of praise for how entertaining it can be. However, the podcast once inspired a lot of anger among many reality TV fans.

In April 2023, Howie Mandel Does Stuff welcomed a Vanderpump Rules cast member named Tom Sandoval. The problem with that was that Tom was a very controversial figure among Vanderpump Rules fans for cheating on his ex-girlfriend Ariana Madix with her friend and co-star Raquel Leviss.

While simply interviewing Tom may have angered Vanderpump Rules fans, Howie did more than that. During Tom's appearance on Howie's podcast, Tom gave his perspective on the cheating scandal that outraged so many observers without much pushback from Howie.

As a Page Six article detailed, during an episode of his SiriusXM show Andy Cohen Live, even Andy Cohen called Howie out for interviewing Tom without challenging him.

“I found out about it last week [and] was annoyed on my behalf, on Bravo’s behalf, on the viewers’ behalf.”

Howie would later defend himself by talking about how he was never going to call everything that Tom said and did out. Thankfully for Howie, the situation eventually seemed to mostly blow over.