Howard Stern leaves his basement for the first time in 2.5 years

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The germ-fearing “King of All Media” has finally emerged from his “apocalypse bunker.”

Infamous germaphobe and COVID-fearing Howard Stern — who has been broadcasting from home since March 2020 — went out to dinner in public for the first time since the start of the pandemic.

Stern, 68, dined at Israeli restaurant Laser Wolf in Williamsburg on Saturday night with a host of stars, including Jennifer Aniston, close friend Jimmy Kimmel, Jon Hamm, Justin Theroux and Jason Bateman.

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Despite his dinner with the host of A-listers, Stern insists he wants to remain a hermit due to his COVID consternation and called the outing “exhausting.”

“I really had an exhausting weekend, emotionally, physically,” he said on his radio show Monday. “For the first time in two years I ventured out of the house.”

He continued about the dinner, “It was too much for me. It was too much. I haven’t been out in two years.”

Stern explained that Kimmel invited him and his wife, Beth Ostrosky, to the outing, and while Ostrosky was excited by the offer, Stern was skeptical.

“I said to my wife, ‘I don’t want to go, I’m in a panic, I don’t want to get COVID.'”

Adding that he and Ostrosky were vaccinated, Stern continued, “I know our president has told us the pandemic is over and everyone is walking around without masks … I still just don’t want to get COVID.”

Stern has previously described himself as being “super paranoid about diseases and germs.”

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He even joked anyone who had to come into his house had to be first tested for COVID-19 and wear hazmat suits.

Kimmel, 54, even claimed he and his wife, Molly McNearney, that in order to stay at Stern’s house for a few days in the summer, they had to be tested twice.

Plus, they weren’t allowed to leave the compound, and If they did, they weren’t allowed back inside due to possible exposure to COVID.

Stern admitted to the talk show host on his show in November 2021, “For me, [COVID] is still going on and I haven’t left my house. I can’t figure out how to integrate myself.”

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“This is my dream,” the radio host told Kimmel, adding that he’s “happiest” when home with his wife.

Kimmel, meanwhile, has been trying to coax the famed hermit out of the house. He said, “We’re worried that we’re going to lose you from society because the longer this goes on, the more comfortable you get in that little world. And then it’s harder and harder to get out of it… it’s unhealthy.”

“F–k it, I’m being a p–y, I know,” Stern admitted, claiming that he would eventually start venturing out for dinners with friends.

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Wow, how the high and mighty have fallen. He’s gone full Howard Hughes complete with collecting piss bottles in his basement that the cats knock over. There’s no telling how bad smelling and disgusting his mansion is at this point. It’s got to be full Hoarders going on there.

Howard’s rise and fall has been absolutely Shakespearean. Between Trump getting elected, Joe Rogan taking his audience from him, and Covid, he’s lost his fricking mind. I guarantee this delusional mother fricker hallucinates Imus walking around his basement on a regular basis. There’s going to be a great movie or miniseries made on Howard one day that he’ll fricking hate. Call it “Citizen Stern”.