Glenn Beck Shares Biggest Regret Since 9/11: 'That Has Haunted Me

With the 15th anniversary of 9/11 just days away, Glenn Beck is thinking back to an experience he had at the time — one he says still haunts him to this day.

"The most personally embarrassing thing I have done since my baptism, when I promised I wouldn’t be the man I used to be, came after 9/11," the radio host said on The Glenn Beck Radio Program Thursday morning.

On Sept. 13, 2001, Beck agreed to participate in a national show on Clear Channel. The conservative talker said, because of the attack on New York's Twin Towers, the station was unable to communicate much with their headquarters and decided to throw him into the show along with another host, who took a different approach to 9/11.

"I was speaking to the heart; he was speaking to the head," Beck said. "It might have been a good show, but it was not the show that I would have done. And it was very, very frustrating because it’s not what I believe the country needed — I think the country needed a hug."

But the program director wanted to keep going with the format for several weeks — a decision that frustrated Beck, who wanted to go solo with his own coverage.

"I believed in that direction so strongly, and they kept going back and forth. And everybody was calm, except me. I think it was the first time Jeffy ever heard me swear," Beck said, continuing:

I said, "I don’t care what the F you put on the air, but it’s not going to be me. And I don’t care what it is, but I am not participating in this anymore. And get somebody on the phone that understands what the hell they’re doing." And I remember the program director looked at me in horror and said, "Do you realize why we can’t get them on the phone? Do you know what it’s like on the streets of New York?"

Eventually, Beck said he stormed out of the room. Though he later returned to apologize to everyone involved, the radio host said the ordeal has "haunted" him. Beck said the reason the situation escalated the way it did was because he and those involved were under the "ultimate level of stress," which he said he is experiencing once again now.

"I told my wife six months ago, ‘Honey, I’m going to quit. I can’t do it anymore. I can’t take the stress anymore. My body can’t take the stress anymore.’ I’m at the pinnacle of my stress," Beck told his listeners. "Has anybody noticed that my language has gotten much worse in the last year and a half? I’m swearing now. Not all the time, but I don’t usually swear."

Moving forward, Beck said the best way to deal with stress is for people simply to "understand" each other.

"We need to be the strongest, most principled people we can possibly be and hold things together as they are flying apart," he concluded.

Listen to the segment below:

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