Five celebrities who felt the wrath of Jon Stewart - in pictures

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  Reuters

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  Getty Images / AFP

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  Bloomberg

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As the curtain falls on Friday, not everyone will be singing Jon Stewart's praises and lamenting his departure from The Daily Show's hot seat – those who have had their egos battered by his razor-sharp wit will be happy to see him go. Here are five of the funnyman's biggest foes through the years.

Bill O’Reilly

As two top-rated cable TV anchors, albeit from opposite ends of the political spectrum, Stewart and Fox News’s O’Reilly have sparred on screen for years. Of the most recent controversy – over whether or not O’Reilly covered the Falklands War as he claims – Stewart shrugged and said: “No one’s watching him for the actual truth.”

Hugh Grant

The British actor is Stewart’s least favourite guest of all time – “and we’ve had dictators on the show”, he points out. Grant reportedly treated staff working on the show with churlish arrogance. Acknowledging his bad behaviour, Grant tweeted: “Turns out my inner crab got the better of me ... Unforgivable. J Stewart right to give me kicking.”

Sarah Palin

After an iffy speech at a Freedom Summit in Iowa this year, Stewart was scathing about the former US vice-presidential candidate: “Incoherent, rambling, unintelligible, folksy idioms – she’s not speaking at a political event, Sarah Palin is ­trying to sell America a Lincoln [automobile].”

Donald Trump

“He’s got no chance,” Stewart said of the comb-over Republican contender in the US presidential race. “In fact, he’s great for the Republicans, because the more he talks, the more he appears on television, the more he makes the other Republicans’ crazy seem kind of reasonable by comparison.”

Camille Paglia

America’s self-described “dissident feminist” and social critic has a particularly sore spot for Stewart’s brand of satire. “I cannot stand that smug, snarky, superior tone,” she says. “I hated the fact that young people were getting their news through that filter of ­sophomoric snark ... I find nothing incisive in his work.”