The story is still developing, but the big news today is that David Letterman went on the air last night and revealed that somebody tried to blackmail him for $2 million. The extortionist threatened to reveal that Letterman had several affairs with his employees, presumably while he was with longtime girlfriend and now wife Regina Lasko. The blackmailer, who is now under arrest, is a producer for CBS News who’s the boyfriend of one of Letterman’s former staffers/bedmates.
“The creepy stuff is that I have had sex with women who work on this show.”
Wow. Blackmail is a serious crime, and the extortionist deserves whatever he gets, but how bizarre is Letterman’s explanation? Apparently the audience thought it was a joke at first. The laughter and applause as he’s laying it all out are really really chill-inducing.
The best part is that Letterman thinks it’s hilarious when other people get caught in sex scandals. Let’s take a trip down memory lane and look at some of his public comments about the sexual activity of others!
Verum Serum has a lot more, but that gives you the idea. That last one was the culmination of a week of controversy over one of his Palin jokes that backfired badly. Which hasn’t stopped him from going after her and her family, and apparently he even made a Palin joke last night. As well as a Mark Sanford joke. Right before telling the story about the extortion threat and the flings with Late Show staffers and whatnot. Is it just me, or does that show a certain lack of self-awareness?
I guess I can work up some sympathy for what Letterman and his family and these other women are going through right now. It just would’ve been nice if he’d shown any sympathy for the people caught up in all the scandals he’s exploited for laughs over the years. Now he knows how they felt.
Update: Woman at Center of Letterman Scandal Often Appeared in Show Skits
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Geez those poor employees. What did they ever do to deserve sex with Letterman? On the upside at least Paul wasn’t involved. Unless….
Take Letterman out of that equation, and you’ve got a point. He didn’t trip and fall into these women; I’m pretty sure it was intentional. I’m also pretty sure animal tranquilizers had to be involved, because…Letterman.
what’s the big deal, he’s never claimed to be a flawless saint, or preached that the guys he made jokes about were sinners, all he did was crack jokes about their pathetic situations in pretty much the same way he just cracked some jokes about his own situation.
he’s ’story’ is the first instance i’ve seen a celeb tell their confessions without any of the pathetic excusing or pretence- he had sex with some women, adult women, who were happy to have sex with him- he didn’t say when, so he could be talking about a period before he was a married father, maybe even during a ‘break’ in his relationship. The point is we don’t know the full story, but i would bet it isn’t as hypocritcal as having a long-term piece on the side while claiming to be the perfect christian husband (ala sanford) or telling other people how to parent their children in the matter of sex, while having a knocked up teen daughter of your own (palin).
This man is just one giant bitter old man who finds it funny to make fun of others lives, but some how makes him the victim when he is the one that is sleeping with his subordinates at work. Sounds like multiple women too. Him, the victim? And I shudder to think that these ladies went willingly into his arms. Blech! Need bleach now.
Letterman basically was too much of a tight wad to even consider paying the $2 million the black mailer asked for. Anyone that has watched Letterman over the years knows that everything he does is for the almighty dollar. Not to mention that it is common knowledge he is the last person to pick up a check or dole out any of his own money for anything that doesn’t specifically benefit him. He would rather be humiliated than part with any of his horde of cash.
“This man is just one giant bitter old man who finds it funny to make fun of others lives”
Yeah, that sums him up all right.
Reading the Times comments on this nasty business, if you can stand it, is as distasteful as Letterman himself. Many Times’ readers betray a rather extreme lack of common sense, calling him a hero, and a standup guy for confessing the crime on the air. Fact is, all Letterman was doing was using his TV show for personal damage control. He was revealing nothing that wasn’t going to come out anyway, and he should have held a separate press conference to handle it, instead of shoving his sleazy affairs down his viewers’ throats.
Sorry, meant to include a link to the Times’ readers comments:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/02/business/media/02extort.html
The audience treated it like a joke because Letterman presented it like a joke.
Two thirds of the way into the nine minute plus monologue (and that’s what it was), people can be heard laughing uproariously in the background.
He definitely paints himself as a victim in this whole process, even using that word, though it will be interesting to see exactly how many “terrible things” Letterman actually did.
In light of his self portrayal of victimization, combined with his recent attacks on Sarah Palin including the suggestion her underage daughter be raped by Alex Rodriguez, I think its fair to say that Letterman is probably a Liberal.
Unlike John Edwards, though, Letterman handled this strategically very well.
He told it all. He told it early, and he told it himself, the three cardinal rules in spin control. Whether his job survives will be less certain.
I read your comments Aleric, and its always a bad idea to pay off blackmailers.
They always come back to the well for more money.
They’re parasitic by nature, but the website TMZ is suggesting that Letterman and his “blackmailer” Halderman shared a common girlfriend, 33 y/o Stephanie Birkitt, who is actully quite familiar to Letterman and occasionally shown on the show doing menial tasks, etc.
Even I knew who she was when I saw her photo.
http://www.tmz.com/2009/10/02/david-letterman-stephanie-birkitt-robert-joe-halderman-extortion/
Long story short, it sounds like Letterman was dabbling with the “Blackmailer’s” live in girlfriend and the guy decided to pay Letterman back.
Not quite the scenario painted by the monologue.
CBS is left wing, his show will survive.
go figure – the video is no longer available due to copyright laws of CBS.
It’s always fun seeing how some of you nuts can turn this into some political conspiracy.
Well if they’d quit putting listening devices in my toothpaste and injecting me with mind control drugs while I’m sleeping maybe I wouldn’t have too!
That’s why I wear the tinfoil.
LOL! Well, there’s a lot to be said for wearing a tinfoil hat.
I didn’t see any “shock” value in it, no matter how much the media is beating this for all its worth. Grown-ups having sex at the workplace is as old as the oldest profession.
If I had a news tip I’d send it. Between this and getting left with the Peeven fishflash (again!) does not make for a juicy topic weekend.
Am I the only one that thinks that $2 million doesn’t mean he was just having sex with female staff members? No way is “the creepy stuff” plain old vanilla sex. I’m anxiously awaiting the really juicy stuff.
Yeah, $2M does seem like a lot to ask for a simple missionary position affair.
In fact, Letterman probably would’ve coughed up $100k without calling the FBI.
The amount of money, and the fact that Letterman repeatedly refers to the “terrible things” he did to these women might lead one to believe that toys, costumes, or scatological references may have been in the proposed screenplay.
Doesn’t sex with a subordinate at work sort of raise the question of sexual harassment? Could one of his subordinate/bedmates make the claim if she felt pressured into it?
Fortunate Son, you are bringing back traumatic memories of a college class analyzing a certain section of Gravity’s Rainbow.
I’m going to hide in the corner now.
I think Letterman dreams about drugging and gang-raping under-age girls.
He’s creepy.
Also: He is not aging well.
Like most sybarites, I might say. Or spintrians.
It’s pretty amazing – the Polanski defenders assure us that forced sex with a minor is ‘consensual’ and not ‘rape rape’. Letterman has sex with his employees but he’s noble for admitting it on-air, and it’s also somehow ‘consensual’.
So to sum up the new marching orders from the progressives: No means yes, and bosses chasing secretaries around the desk is back in. Pour me another highball and let’s go!
F_S : totally agree with your analysis of spin control. He is minimizing damage. What is the worst that could happen if he ‘fessed up, and quickly ? His reputation as a saint would go out the window ? Already out. Be embarrassed ? He’s already conquered that, before these indiscretions. What about … Nope, no problem there either. Et cetera. A no-brainer for him. The blackmailer gets fingered, and Dave’s tarnish gets another layer added — big deal. I’m not saying he comes out smelling like a rose, simply because he is coming clean — au contraire, he doth stinketh. Would that all politicians and role models (two different categories, BTW) be as quick to admit wrongdoings.
all this time, I thought his recent years of bitterness was from impotence.
Are we sure Letterman was banging females and not, like, Paul or some of the NBC male pages. Dave has always been a little hinky and, like he says, creepy.
There, there, dan . . . your hero will keep his show so you can still be cool repeating the Top 10 lists while you’re cleaning the frier.
The bright side of this story and the Travolta extortion trial is that maybe a few people decide that blackmail isn’t the safe, quick way to make a buck they thought it was.
You know, if I were one of those women, I’d have paid HIM not to let anyone on God’s earth know I’d ever touched him. He’s the horrifying love child of Howdy Doody’s and Alfred E. Neuman’s drunken weekend on Fire Island.
Your claims about what they claimed don’t really make you sound like you know what you’re talking about.
Your claims about what they claimed don’t really make you sound like you know what you’re talking about.
ok, in what way? because sanford IS a hypocrite who lambasted numerous cheating-on-their-wives politicians, in not a joking manner but a preaching manner, while at that very time doing the same bloody thing himself. And palin is a politician who wanted all schools to practice abstinence-only sex ed. but couldn’t practice it in her own home, so a politician of the ‘do as i say not as i do’ variety no less.
I stand corrected, then: He’s no better than David Letterman.
Incorrect. Advocating contraceptives and advocating abstinence are not mutually exclusive. One is effective, and one is surefire. “Sarah Palin is abstinence-only” is a myth.
I’m sure she has an opinion on how abstinence-only might’ve benefited David Letterman, though…
‘Incorrect. Advocating contraceptives and advocating abstinence are not mutually exclusive. One is effective, and one is surefire. “Sarah Palin is abstinence-only” is a myth.’
i have to disagree with you that it’s myth. but the point still remains she is one of these politicos who preaches to other people about the way they should raise their kids, and advocates that schools/education should teach kids about sex the way she wants, but she failed to bring her own child up this way.
‘I’m sure she has an opinion on how abstinence-only might’ve benefited David Letterman, though…’
she probably does and we will no doubt hear about it because if there’s anything palin knows how do well is point out the sins of others, while failing to notice her own ones.
Beige
Oct 3rd, 2009 at 9:23 am
You know, if I were one of those women, I’d have paid HIM not to let anyone on God’s earth know I’d ever touched him. He’s the horrifying love child of Howdy Doody’s and Alfred E. Neuman’s drunken weekend on Fire Island.
*******************************************
lol yep
Dan’s a moron.
And a hypocrite.
Go DAN!!
If anyone ever asked for any single reason why I like Palin, it’s because even now she seems to scare the Hell out of liberals. They can’t seem to stop talking about her, and they bring her up every chance they get to slam her. Kinda the way a grade school boy kicks a girl he “doesn’t like” in the shins. They still do that don’t they? Or is it just me?
And as far as I know she isn’t running for anything, or even a governor anymore.
I’m not going to explain to you what the word “only” means.
I don’t recall her ever “preaching” about it, nor have you explained how her daughter’s failure to live up to her mother’s ideals somehow renders those ideals null and void. But then, I’m not obsessed with her.
There’s no more fascinating psychological phenomenon than projection.
Now, now. He can stick around if he wants.
dan
Oct 3rd, 2009 at 10:14 am
And palin is a politician who wanted all schools to practice abstinence-only sex ed. but couldn’t practice it in her own home, so a politician of the ‘do as i say not as i do’ variety no less.
Oh, where do I begin?
There are a couple of problems with your statement dan. The first one being that abstinence-only is a choice. You keep having to make the choice to stay abstinent in order to keep from becoming pregnant, or getting someone pregnant. If you remain abstinent, then you don’t have to go out and buy birth-control drugs or condoms because . . . well . . . you’re ABSTAINING.
The other problem is, as every parent knows, children have this thing called ‘free will.’ That ‘free will’ allows them to make their own decisions. Unfortunately, sometimes those decisions are not always well thought out. To paraphrase a quote from one of the Indiana Jones movies, “Bristol chose poorly.”
You see dan, parents are not omnipresent, omniscient beings. They are just as human as the children they produce. Blaming the parent for a child’s behavior only goes so far. There is a woman in my home town that is among the nicest people you would ever want to meet. Her only son is in prison far from my home town for the murder of another very nice woman. No one blames her, especialy as her son was plenty old enough to make that particular bad decision.
There is my two cents on that matter. As for Letterman, I’ll not comment unless needed.
I had wondered how Simon was going to respond. Looks like he responded while I was still thinking of my response.
F_S: The amount of money, and the fact that Letterman repeatedly refers to the “terrible things” he did to these women might lead one to believe that toys, costumes, or scatological references may have been in the proposed screenplay.
Well, duh – it must’ve been difficult to find a Larry “Bud” Melman costume in her size.
Dave, I almost shorted out my keyboard!!! ROFLOL!!!
“”"He definitely paints himself as a victim in this whole process, even using that word, though it will be interesting to see exactly how many “terrible things” Letterman actually did.
I’m anxiously awaiting the really juicy stuff.”"”
Ugh. These poor women have been through enough without people combing through their personal lives for peverted entertainment.
Another Letterman intern Holly Hester comes forth to say they had an affair.
Letterman is fine; he never was the “Family Values” type. Yes, he probably cheated on his girlfriend now wife. But at least he does go around claiming he is Mr. “Family Values” like some of our politicians (can you just see the grin on all “Fake News” reporters/commentators). This has been a tough summer, for Dave, for our economy but at least he did not end up on the “Republican 2009 Summer of Love” list: Assemblyman, Michael D. Duvall (CA), Senator John Ensign (NV), Senator Paul Stanley (TN), Governor Mark Stanford (SC), Board of Ed Chair, and Kristin Maguire AKA Bridget Keeney (SC).
To counter-act THIS Letterman, I need to go watch the OTHER Letterman:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Letterman
It’s okay for him to sit in judgment of other creeps because he’s also a creep?
He should just get away with it?
CBS pulls all YouTube copies of Dave’s confession
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/05/business/media/05letterman.html?_r=1
I’m just wondering what it is that Letterman has going for him? He’s not funny or clever, he’s unattractive, and – with this news – he’s becoming uber-creepy. I don’t understand why he’s on TV.
@Fortunate
I wasn’t condoning black mail, I was just pointing out that Letterman is a known tight wad and would rather humiliate himself than pay ANY amount of money he didn’t have to.
In two weeks time Letterman will never allow the subject to be brought up and won’t do any interviews and get angry at anyone that even attempts to try.
Two. Million. Dollars. That’ll buy an awful lot of Xanax and blindfolds, baby.
And Beige – don’t forget the bleach.
BB and Dan.
Sometimes people can have the right answers, even if they fail to follow them through in their own lives.
Some Doctors smoke, Atkins was a fatty, etc.
So Palin’s Daughter couldn’t stop herself. Its not like Palin is asking for Children to be taught that babies come from storks or anything here.
And I am pretty sure this thread is about David Letterman anyways.
‘And I am pretty sure this thread is about David Letterman anyways.’
yeah it is but read the original post, that’s where palin (and sanford) is mentioned, the implication being that letterman can’t tell a palin/sanford joke (or should be hounded for the past jokes he has made regarding them) because he has had sex with women that aren’t his current wife.
i love that people think ‘liberals’ (and how quickly anyone who doesn’t find palin a darling is seen to be a ‘liberal’) are obssessed with palin when it was the poster who brought her name into this in the first place.
also, i completely understand the difficulty facing parents with young teens, and the rebellious nature of teenage-hood, and i wouldn’t be putting the faults of palin jnr on the head of palin snr if she hadn’t built herself up or acted like one of these parents/politicians who feels the need to outpour their religious ideals onto the rest society.
and by the way ‘democratsarefacists’, yeah i probably am a moron and hypocrite (somewhere along the line, everybody is, aren’t they?), and i do apologise if anything i said has made you turn into a cauldron of venomous anger, i can clearly see through the name you have chosen you are a level headed and rational individual with much to offer a civilised debate.
He can make whatever jokes he wants. And we can point out how it makes him a hypocrite.
“politicians who feels the need to outpour their religious ideals onto the rest society.”
I must’ve missed that somewhere. Am I the only one? I don’t ever remember hearing anything like that from Palin. I’m being serious. Was I not paying attention?
You were not the only one Pasta, cause I do not remember either. Must have been that whole selective listening thing again.
sorry, are you both just completely blindsided to anything construed as a negative about certain people/politicians. you seriously don’t think that palin’s views on abortion, same-sex marriage are faith-based and not secular?
you really think when she speaks about ‘god’s plan’ and ‘god’s task’ in reference to war she isn’t being propelled by her faith? come on.
and before you start, no i’m not a atheist, i have faith, but just don’t feel that it should be imposed on all the others in this society. palin does, the only reason you would disagree with that is because you agree with all her sentiments- which is fine but don’t deny what it is.
Well said.
It’s not my job to prove she didn’t say it. It’s your job to prove to me that she did. That was all I asked. If she did say anything like that any support would end right now.
So…. Prove it and I’ll be with you. Otherwise, QUIT MAKING S-IT UP.
‘If she did say anything like that any support would end right now.
So…. Prove it and I’ll be with you. Otherwise, QUIT MAKING S-IT UP.’
pastafarian, your on the internet- i know there is a load of non-fact based info on here, but seriously!
making it up? what would be the point in that? you believe/support/reject who want based on your personal discovery and research, and i’ll do likewise.
That’s such a bulls*** defense. 2+2=5, prove me wrong! Do your own research!
What a bunch of crap.
Dan, like most liberals (seriously, why does it bother you and other liberals to be referred to as such? It’s what you are. It’s not like I deny it or act offended when people call me conservative.) you just can’t stand to see religion even peripherally referred to by anyone in government. A study really should be done, because it’s damn near pathological.
You mention God in front of a liberal and it’s practically Pavlovian the way the seething hatred kicks in, but I forgot, only religious people can be hate-filled, so perhaps I’m confused.
You also can’t use a person’s positions to claim a religious bias unless they’ve flat out claimed that their reasons are in fact religious. Did it ever occur that a person might prefer abstinence because it’s literally the ONLY 100% sure way of avoiding pregnancy or an STD? Or that they may be against gay marriage because they believe the law clearly states a marriage is between a man and a woman? There are reasons to support these positions beyond ‘God wouldn’t like it’, and implying that every person who holds them does so out of some religious belief is pretty narrow-minded (especially coming from a guy bitching about getting pigeon-holed himself).
Beyond that, even if she was making religious comments, what harm does it do beyond pissing off people like you? Bush did more to aid Africa than any American President before him, if he’d referred to that as ‘Doing God’s work’, that would somehow be offensive? Your stance seems predicated on the notion that religion is inherently evil and should thus be kept completely from the public arena. Never mind that churches are responsible for more charitable contributions than any single country on Earth, or their benefits to the communities around them? Since you obviously don’t like the church and the government getting in bed together, I suppose we should shut down all the community soup kitchens, boys and girls clubs, and battered womens’ shelters they run as well?
What about the simple implication a lack of God would mean for the entire structure of our manner of government? Every founding father signed a document saying that rights were given to man by a Divine Creator, and that men then relinquished some of those rights willingly to the government in order to establish national order for the common good. When you remove God from the equation then by definition the only rights you get are the ones the government LETS you have. Those rights are no longer inalienable because there is no higher authority than the government to regulate human avarice.
“We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
- John Adams
are you being serious pastafarian, you seriously have never read or heard anything about palin’s mixing of faith and state, and me passing you onto a link would alter your support for her, just like that. wtf?
you know what you’re right, i made it all up. she’s never referred to god when talking about the war or even a gas pipeline. sorry my mistake, won’t speak of it again.
And she’s the first American politician to ever mention God. Right?
Because when Barry O. brings God into the picture, it’s to rubber-stamp His name on that healthcare thing. And that’s peachy.
no she isn’t simon, they’re all/mostly at it, because they won’t get elected if they don’t.
obama doing the same may be ‘peachy’ to some, but i find it as annoying as palin/any one else doing it.
After all: “We are God’s partners in matters of life and death.” But that’s different, because… um… er…
Yes I am being completely serious.
“mixing of faith and state, and me passing you onto a link would alter your support for her, just like that.”
Yes it would. You see because I’m not a partisan nut-bag. So any time you want to pass along that proof… or link….
I’ll wait right here.