Howard Stern excited about AGT's 'fourth' season

"They keep telling people it’s the 10th anniversary. But it’s the fourth season, as far as I’m concerned,” says Howard Stern, who joined America’s Got Talent as a judge in 2012.

That’s what you’d expect Howard to say.

But quickly he adds that with AGT launching what everyone but Stern would consider its 10th season, he’s having a ball with fellow judges Howie Mandel, Heidi Klum and Mel B.

“I may be the most important judge in the history of the world, but secretly I’ll tell you, I’m glad they’re there,” he confides.

Everyone remembers the uproar when Stern was brought aboard this family-friendly talent competition: Wasn’t he a legendary “shock jock,” a bad-boy superstar on SiriusXM Radio who would say anything to get a reaction?

Maybe, but Stern, now 61, thought he would make an ideal judge, that his long show-biz career (wasn’t he the King of All Media?) would serve him well in evaluating each act. More to the point: He was already a big AGT fan.

Like his fellow judges, Stern knows the choices he makes on the show can help launch a star or dash a lifetime of striving for stardom. He says he’s awakened in the middle of the night after a broadcast, worried that he made the right decision.

“I’m obsessed with getting things right,” he explains. “I recently started painting. I know I’ll never be great. But I’m so obsessed with being a really good painter. So even a hobby becomes like work: I’ve GOT to be good at this! I can’t stand being so bad at it!”

What does he paint?

“I’ve painted a series of watercolors of flowers for my wife’s office,” he reports.

Watercolors?! Flowers?! That just doesn’t sound like Howard’s style.

“I know,” he laughs. “It shocks the hell out of people. But after I was hired on a family-friendly TV show, there was nothing else shocking left for me to do.”