Amy Schumer, Howard and Beth Stern, Lisa Lampanelli, more stars turn out for North Shore Animal League's annual celebrity gala

Howard Stern cleans litter boxes.

Not only that, but the self-described King of All Media also helps socialize the many kittens his wife, longtime animal activist Beth Stern, has brought home from North Shore Animal League to foster over the years, she said Friday at the league's annual celebrity gala, held at Manhattan's Pierre Hotel.

The Long Island couple co-chaired the event, hosted by comedian Lisa Lampanelli and featuring performances by Amy Schumer (who graduated from Rockville Centre's South Side High School a few decades after Stern) as well as Wilson Phillips.

The gala's mission was to raise the final $1 million toward a $7 million expansion of the Port Washington shelter, called Bianca's Furry Friends Feline Adoption Center, named after the Sterns' dog who died in summer 2012, Beth Stern said. The planned 14,000-square-foot facility would add a second floor to the existing shelter, providing a cage-free environment for cats, and leaving the entire existing first floor for dogs. Billy Joel and celebrity chef Rachael Ray are among the project's donors.

Lampanelli brought along her own dog, a tiny, four-year-old pup unfazed by the chaos of the red carpet, wich she guesses is a Yorkshire Terrier-Chihuahua mix. "When you adopt, you never know!" she said.

"Losing weight opened my heart, so then I adopted a dog," she told the crowd, referencing her 107-pound weight loss after undergoing gastric sleeve surgery in 2012. "I named him Parker, after my hero, Sarah Jessica Parker, because they weigh the same."

Howard Stern revealed how he managed to snag Schumer, arguably the most in-demand comic around right now, for the night: Basically, she owed him one.

SEE PHOTOSCelebrities and their pets

"About a year and a half, two years ago when I had Amy on the show [his SiriusXM radio show], a guy named Judd Apatow heard her while he was driving in his car. He called her, they had a meeting, then they wrote a movie called 'Trainwreck.'

"She owes me! She got a movie out of this. She's not here because she loves animals, " he joked. "She's here because she owes me."

Schumer played along, leading with, "It's an honor to be here and I know that because I'm not getting paid."

She mostly riffed on her recent fame and the tabloid rumors that come with the territory: Some false, she says ("I'm newly famous, and apparently I scream that when I leave the gym. Did you see that New York Post story?"), and some true ("Yes, I do work out so that I can eat a pastry after"). 

SEE PHOTOSAmy Schumer photos

As for that time she was photographed paddle-boarding in a bikini? "I didn't recognize myself. I was like, 'Oh, Alfred Hitchcock is alive and does water sports?'"

Another rising star from Long lsand, 21-year-old Port Jefferson Station native Raquel Castro, attended the gala. She's appeared on the hit FOX show "Empire" several times this season as a member of the girl group Mirage a Trois, and on Friday teased her upcoming album, set for release in 2016.

"It's going to be pop, but more of a hip pop," she said. "It's just going to be really fun, relatable music. Lyrically, I like to be very honest with my music when I write."