David Letterman: I Faced Extortion Over Affairs

NEW YORK (CNN) -- David Letterman told his audience Thursday that he is the victim of an alleged extortion attempt and admitted to having sexual relations with several members of his staff, according to a press release from his production company.


Letterman made the announcement during taping of the "Late Show."

"This morning, I did something I've never done in my life," Letterman told his audience, according to a release from Worldwide Pants Inc. "I had to go downtown and testify before a grand jury."

The 62-year-old funnyman said he received a package three weeks ago from a person who claimed to have information about Letterman's sexual dalliances, ultimately demanding $2 million to prevent public revelation.

Letterman said he went to the Manhattan District Attorney's office, which conducted an investigation, and an arrest was made earlier Thursday.

In his grand jury testimony, Letterman said, he revealed the relations with members of his staff.

"My response to that is, yes I have," he said. "Would it be embarrassing if it were made public? Perhaps it would. I feel like I need to protect these people -- I need to certainly protect my family."

Letterman married long-time partner Regina Lasko in March. The couple, who have been together since 1986, have a son, Harry, 6.

Letterman has been host of "Late Show with David Letterman" on CBS since 1993 after leaving NBC, where he was host of "Late Night with David Letterman" for 11 years. "Late Show" airs at 11:30 p.m. "Late Night" aired an hour later.





David Letterman admitted to having sexual relationships with female staff members, his company says.

Once again DAVID is a class act, he's human bad things happend, he did his part came clean, thats what life is about, we all fucked up, glad they jailed that fucking asshole, hope he gets life, just for the fun of it.

they;re after him because of the Palin incident.

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All Glory To the Hypno-Toad!

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From another (now-locked) thread on this topic:

SCNDLS said:

Serena said:

Affairs with Letterman = EWWWWW!!!

I wanna know who these broads are

..he must a part of that "brotherhood" they've been talking about.

Stern'll have a field day with this! He loves Dave, but you just know they'll be digging up Evil Dave.

For those who don't know, "Evil Dave" is a semi-regular on the show who does an uncanny Letterman impression. He impersonates Dave in prank calls, etc., where he says horrendous things.

Lammastide said:

Y'all scoff, but there've been... uh... "stories" about Dave for some time now.

Why would anyone fall 4 this type of extortion?

uPtoWnNY said:

Lammastide said:

Y'all scoff, but there've been... uh... "stories" about Dave for some time now.

...and what exactly are you implying?

Ace said:

Stern'll have a field day with this! He loves Dave, but you just know they'll be digging up Evil Dave.

For those who don't know, "Evil Dave" is a semi-regular on the show who does an uncanny Letterman impression. He impersonates Dave in prank calls, etc., where he says horrendous things.

joseph8 said:

Ace said:

Stern'll have a field day with this! He loves Dave, but you just know they'll be digging up Evil Dave.

For those who don't know, "Evil Dave" is a semi-regular on the show who does an uncanny Letterman impression. He impersonates Dave in prank calls, etc., where he says horrendous things.

Evil Dave is HILARIOUS!

Dave is really wise to just come out & admit this stuff. I think these public figures all learned from Clinton's "I did not have sexual relations..."

It's not a good thing when your most famous quote is a lie

I know there are issues since he's the boss, but really, who hasn't had a relationship with someone they worked with? I hope this will blow over, because I don't see it as truly scandalous (as far as we know yet). Not any more scandalous than any of our lives at least.

joseph8 said:

Ace said:

Stern'll have a field day with this! He loves Dave, but you just know they'll be digging up Evil Dave.

For those who don't know, "Evil Dave" is a semi-regular on the show who does an uncanny Letterman impression. He impersonates Dave in prank calls, etc., where he says horrendous things.

Evil Dave is HILARIOUS!

I feel bad for David Letterman's wife Regina Lasko and his son Harry. Unless he's discussed it all with Regina and it's all water under the bridge, we don't know, but she's got to be feeling bad right now. And Harry is going to be teased by kids at school, eventually.

I have to say there's something just a bit creepy about seeing dave address such a serious subject with the same jokey delivery that he uses for his normal material.

The audience obviously thought it was a joke at first because of his tone, which says "this is a joke." I suppose that's just the tone he has on his show, but it was a little weird to watch.

NDRU said:

The fact that someone would let him enter inside them is more disturbing ... well fineness is in the eye of the paynul-receiver



ugh

joseph8 said:

Ace said:

Stern'll have a field day with this! He loves Dave, but you just know they'll be digging up Evil Dave.

For those who don't know, "Evil Dave" is a semi-regular on the show who does an uncanny Letterman impression. He impersonates Dave in prank calls, etc., where he says horrendous things.

Evil Dave is HILARIOUS!

not sure how to respond to the prior post but Dave is cool and if anything, the response to this story kinda shows you how stupid a lot of people are

so many people jumping to conclusions about him, without knowing the real story

go figure

Ace said:

Stern'll have a field day with this! He loves Dave, but you just know they'll be digging up Evil Dave.

For those who don't know, "Evil Dave" is a semi-regular on the show who does an uncanny Letterman impression. He impersonates Dave in prank calls, etc., where he says horrendous things.

Letterman took the right avenue in how he handled this. Plenty of people have cheated on their spouses, and oftentimes with coworkers/employees. Just saying it publicly himself on his own show saved him a ton of bad press later if the tabloids had scooped the story, or if he'd tried to deny it.

Scary shit that someone was able to get into his car though. What if it'd been a bomb or some shit and not just an envelope of incriminating evidence?

lastdecember said:

nobody ever said he cheated on anyone

funny how people just jump to that conclusion

but i guess the media will eat this story up

Workplace affairs have been going on since the dawn of who knows when. We just didn't have the internet before to be on people's cases 24/7 to dissect every move they make. I say let whomever his mate was affected by these actions...let them render judgment...and then act accordingly as they see fit. Otherwise, this really doesn't need to be in the public discourse...although I understand why he's choosing to handle it this way-
[Edited 10/3/09 3:47am]

japanrocks said:

Two of the female employees David Letterman apparently dated are Holly Hester and Stephanie Birkitt. Holly Hester was much younger than Dave and that was the reason he broke off the relationship with her. Stephanie Birkitt, 34, was Dave's assistant and also appeared on the show for some comedy bits. Both relationships ended before Letterman married Regina Lasko (herself a former employee of Dave's) and they had their son Harry Letterman.

It's interesting that Stephanie Birkitt also dated and lived with Robert Joel "Joe" Halderman, the CBS "48 Hours" reporter, who tried to extort the $2M out of Letterman.

Obviously, more news will come out of this in the coming days.

In the meantime, The Late Show is enjoying a spike in the ratings, and advertisers are saying they'll stick with Dave.

markpeg said:

lastdecember said:

well....looks like he was having an affair after all

oh well