http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/david-letterman-admits-sexual-affairs-staffers-details-extortion/story?id=8728424

Quote :

"David Letterman Confession: I Had Sex With Staffers, Got Targeted by Extortionist Tells Fans of Scandal During Thursday Night Show By MICHAEL S. JAMES Oct. 1, 2009 — David Letterman told the audience of his late night talk show that he had sexual relationships with female members of his staff, and added he forked over a bogus $2 million check as part of an extortion plot on the matter. Letterman, 62, made the confessions to the audience during a taping of "The Late Show" for broadcast Thursday night, according to a statement by Worldwide Pants Inc., Letterman's production company. "This morning, I did something I've never done in my life," Letterman told his audience, according to the statement. "I had to go downtown and testify before a grand jury." During that testimony, Letterman acknowledged unspecified sexual relationships with staff members, the Worldwide Pants statement said. "My response to that [allegation of sexual relationships] is, 'Yes I have.' Would it be embarrassing if it were made public? Perhaps it would," Letterman said. "I feel like I need to protect these people. I need to certainly protect my family." Earlier this year, Letterman announced on his show his marriage to his longtime girlfriend, Regina Lasko. The pair have a son, Harry Joseph Letterman, whose impending arrival Letterman announced on his show in 2003. It's unclear from the Worldwide Pants statement when Letterman's sexual relations with his female staffers occurred. But according to the statement, Letterman received a package three weeks ago containing a threat to reveal those indiscretions "if Letterman did not pay the individual a large sum of money" -- specified in a later communication as $2 million. "Letterman said that he referred the matter to the Special Prosecution Bureau of the Manhattan District Attorney's office," the Worldwide Pants statement said, "which Letterman said conducted an investigation, which included his issuing a "phony" $2 million check to the individual, and culminated in the individual's arrest earlier today." Letterman was a longtime bachelor after his first marriage ended in divorce in 1977. He has had at least one relationship with a co-worker in the past. Merrill Markoe, a comedian and author who was his longtime writer, was his girlfriend in the 1980s. Letterman Pointed Out Infidelities of Others Even so, Letterman has joked about others' infidelities. Numerous jokes and at least two of Letterman's famous "top ten" lists highlighted South Carolina Gov. Rick Sanford's extramarital affair. Letterman included the "Top Ten Surprising Facts About Mark Sanford" and the "Top Ten Gov. Mark Sanford Excuses" during the days after the governor admitted to having an affair this June. Letterman has been a fixture on late night network television since 1982 after a short stint with a morning show on NBC. As host of "Late Night" on NBC and then "The Late Show" on CBS, he is second only to Johnny Carson as the longest-running late night host. ABC News' Eileen Murphy and Emily Friedman contributed to this report. "

10/1/2009 11:02:14 PM

ha, this doesn't surprise me really.

10/1/2009 11:03:00 PM

ratings must be slipping

10/1/2009 11:05:29 PM

10/1/2009 11:17:18 PM

why is this news?

10/1/2009 11:26:42 PM

dave nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!

10/1/2009 11:27:50 PM

Quote :

"why is this news?"

I think it is news because he has come out and made very crude comments about Sarah Palin's daughter, to the point where he had to come out and apologize for the impression that he was a sexual pervert. And also about the numerous jokes he made about Governor Sanford's despicable lies and extra-marital affair.

So, it's pretty much because he is another national celebrity hypocrite.

10/2/2009 2:10:31 AM

But....he just got married. Who knows when these affairs happened. Not condoning him cheating on his girlfriend....but still...big difference. Plus he's not a politican, representing the people, and I guess possibly serving as a role model. He's a LATE NIGHT host that makes crude jokes about everybody and everything. He's also held himself out to be basically be a perverted old man on his show.

Don't see why this is a big deal at all. And sounds like he could have tried to cover it up to a certain degree...but has chosen to kind of "man-up" about it. Although I'm sure he would have kept it quiet if he had know it was never going to get out.

Move along people....

Oh....and he's still the man.

10/2/2009 2:18:20 AM

^^He made the jokes because they were topical and his writers wrote them..........

10/2/2009 2:39:42 AM

well he's been w/ his wife since 1986. so even though he was married recently it looks like he cheated on his girlfriend and future wife numerous times. i still like letterman shit tons more than leno.

10/2/2009 3:04:36 AM

Quote :

"I think it is news because he has come out and made very crude comments about Sarah Palin's daughter, to the point where he had to come out and apologize for the impression that he was a sexual pervert."

i didn't realize people were still stupid enough to think this way about that incident

10/2/2009 4:20:16 AM

Wait, so someone who has consensual extramarital sex is a pervert? I thought we reserved that term for people who bang little kids and masturbate in public?

Is Dave still something? I think so. Know your cuts of meat, bitches.

[Edited on October 2, 2009 at 8:38 AM. Reason : .]

10/2/2009 8:37:46 AM

Geee wiz, I'm shocked and surprised. A big time tv star fucking members of his staff.

10/2/2009 9:03:39 AM

BEEN THERE

DONE THAT

10/2/2009 9:07:12 AM

thread over

10/2/2009 9:16:15 AM

David Letterman and his PR staff are GENIUSES

someones going to get a raise for this (lol, pun)

10/2/2009 1:40:08 PM

girlfriend =/ wife

no matter how long you have been together

you can't compare a talk show host cheating on his girlfriend to a Governor cheating on his wife

10/2/2009 1:49:14 PM

hahhaha you can very easily. common law marriage comes from common sense, and the motherfucker has had one fuck of a cushion (decade or so) if thats the case you're making, please back off it before it invades your dreams

poor letterman

i knew he was in trouble the instant he donned those dyke glasses.

everyone loves a grumpy old man, but the dude got bitter somewhere along the way and it is not helping him

[Edited on October 2, 2009 at 1:51 PM. Reason : asdf]

10/2/2009 1:49:52 PM

^ yeah but he wasn't married by common law until march of this year. we have no idea when exactly he had sex with women on his staff, but it probably did happen when he was involved with his current wife considering the amount of time they had been "dating" or whatever. still, he's not a fucking elected official who lied to his family and the entire state of south carolina about hiking on the appalachian trail when he was actually fucking a woman in argentina. i'm not saying what letterman did was right, but he doesn't hold a position of power within the government, and he's not held to the same standards as people like mark sanford. he's a fucking late night talk show host, not a role model. and how exactly is he bitter? do you even watch his show?

10/2/2009 2:22:15 PM

common law marriage is where after a certain period of time you can be considered married without having actually gotten married. not sure if they have that in new york or wherever his permanent residence is.

edit: other than that I don't think it's a big deal, except that a big CBS producer tried and miserably failed to blackmail Letterman, and then even failed to embarass him because the first anybody heard about it was directly from Letterman himself.

Comedians don't derive the moral authority to point out the failings in others from their own righteousness, they derive it from the fact that they are comedians.

[Edited on October 2, 2009 at 2:39 PM. Reason : .]

10/2/2009 2:34:19 PM

The fact Letterman made jokes about Sanford and other Republicans is irrelevent, even though his joke about Palin's daughter was tasteless.

It has nothing to do with a liberal bias, he made tons of Lewinsky jokes for a good two years. I wouldn't be surprised to find a few Edwards jokes in his archives.

10/2/2009 2:44:21 PM

after kdawg admitted he listens to the fucking NEWSBOYS i stopped caring about any of his other posts

10/2/2009 2:51:16 PM

that picture makes me feel ashamed

and weird

10/2/2009 3:01:06 PM

Quote :

"his joke about Palin's daughter was tasteless"

He didn't know at the time that it was the younger daughter that went to the baseball game. He meant to make a joke about the older slut, Bristol, the whole time.

10/2/2009 3:11:36 PM

Yeah, I still thought it was tasteless.

10/2/2009 3:14:51 PM

Is it really an affair when you're not married? Isn't it just cheating.

10/2/2009 3:21:38 PM

this is just feels like another example of how we're living in a dystopia

you say you slept with members of your staff, thereby cheating on your significant other and mother of your child, and people FUCKING LAUGH

...

I know he's not a public official, but it's like all methods of decency are being eroded

you can't even be shamed anymore

there's something wrong here

10/2/2009 3:21:43 PM

people laughed because it was part of the act & they think they are supposed to laugh at everything he says

10/2/2009 3:24:09 PM

but they didn't have to

they could of easily gasped, been disgusted, and walk right out

but they didn't

10/2/2009 3:34:19 PM

video of his confession?

10/2/2009 4:05:59 PM

Why would they walk out?

10/2/2009 4:07:14 PM

I guess from being disgusted...

it's just so alien to us now the idea of being appalled by this

so much so that, honestly, even the idea of extorting someone like letterman seems laughable

...

think about it

do you think Johnny Carson or Ed Sullivan could have exposed this kind of dirty laundry, on air, back in their day?

[Edited on October 2, 2009 at 4:14 PM. Reason : .]

10/2/2009 4:11:20 PM

Yes

10/2/2009 4:18:46 PM

^^Unless someone drones on and on about the 'sanctity of marriage' or 'family values', I think most people don't consider it a big deal. One point made during the Lewinsky scandal is that Europe laughed at how much we cared. Why would an audience walk out when a host puts his personal business out there like that? People in the audience are more likely to root for the host and forgive him when he admits he fucked up.

Carson and Sullivan didn't have to deal with nearly the level of press scrutiny that today's celebrities deal with. That's the primary reason to extort him. I thought Letterman was talking about it now in the hopes of keeping his wife's and staffers' faces from being splashed on the cover of tabloids.

[Edited on October 2, 2009 at 4:43 PM. Reason : .]

10/2/2009 4:39:38 PM

CBS producer plead not guilty

10/2/2009 4:40:42 PM

Quote :

"you say you slept with members of your staff, thereby cheating on your significant other and mother of your child, and people FUCKING LAUGH"

i remember people laughing at hat he was saying leading up to the part where he admitted to sleeping with members of his staff, but after he said it the crowd kind of got silent for a second after they realized it was actually kind of serious.

10/2/2009 4:56:59 PM

nevermind. i saw the replay. people did laugh when he said his response was "yes i did." i do remember one part when the audience laughed at something else he said and he said something like "how is this funny?"

10/2/2009 9:17:48 PM

LOL at the bob barker reference

10/2/2009 9:55:02 PM

first off, Lettterman had to go public, because the dude who extorting him was getting arrested and a huge public trial will develop from it. theres no way it can be hidden, the only thing he can do is control the timing and environment in which it was released.

as for the audience, people often laugh when they're put in an uncomfortable and/or unexpected situation. we also have come to expect Letterman to make bizarre jokes and running gags, and so probably a lot of them were unsure of whether or not it was a joke

I bet that had to have been probably the most intense and surreal thing to ever get to witness. who the fuck would even consider walking out?

finally, i never knew how much of self-righteous and moralistic douchebag nastoute could be.







[Edited on October 2, 2009 at 10:13 PM. Reason : ]

10/2/2009 10:04:26 PM

Quote :

"He meant to make a joke about the older slut, Bristol, the whole time."

Oh I see, she's a slut now?

10/2/2009 10:14:34 PM

only sluts get pregnant in high school.

10/2/2009 10:16:50 PM

Plitics

10/2/2009 10:18:22 PM

yeah, hard to argue with that


hey, abstinence-only totally works! (unless you're a governor's daughter, i guess)

10/2/2009 10:22:05 PM

yeah, i should have said "stupid sluts"

but that should have been obvious, because we're talking about the Palins

10/2/2009 10:40:05 PM

Quote :

"finally, i never knew how much of self-righteous and moralistic douchebag nastoute could be."

you can go suck a dick

I'm a reasonable as the next guy... but I DO NOT like the complete moral decay of our society

I'm sorry... I don't.

where's the fucking line?

Don't lump me in with the right wingers, because I'm not that... but I don't like that no one seems to give a fuck about anything... it's weird.

I'm not condemning david letterman really... I just don't like where we all are, it feels wrong.

10/3/2009 3:22:23 PM

^ the reason I don't give a fuck is because i have failings of my own. i don't have the right to judge him on that basis.

10/3/2009 5:16:06 PM