David Letterman explains the extortion scandal to his audience VIDEO
David Letterman shocked his audience Thursday, admitting to sexual affairs with female employees and explaining that someone had threatened extortion.
A producer for the CBS show, “48 Hours,” Robert Halderman, attempted to extort $2 million from the talk show host, threatening to go public with Dave’s affairs. So Dave decided to beat them to the punch.
On Thursday’s show, Dave shared with his audience that yes, he had sexual affairs with female employees. He explained that the man attempting to extort money from him left a package in his car with a note saying, “I know that you do some terrible, terrible things,” and provided proof of those things in the package.
Dave said that Halderman threatened to write a screenplay and a book about him, and they would include all the details of his sexual affairs.
So Dave said he contacted his attorney who suggested they meet with the extortionist. They did, and sure enough Halderman wanted money in order to keep quiet. So a second meeting was planned and the man stuck to his guns, despite being warned that what he was doing may be illegal.
A third meeting was planned, and it was at this meeting that Halderman was to be paid the $2 million. He was paid – with a phony check – and was arrested around noon Thursday.
David sure has charisma! How many people do you know could admit to scandalous sexual affairs and have people in stitches at the same time? Although controversial, that was THE best thing Dave could have done for his public image. Coming clean, admitting that he screwed up, and not leaving it to his publicist to do the dirty work of trying to cover up his actions.
Hardly anyone in Hollywood admits when they have done something scandalous. It’s always someone else’s fault, or it’s a lie, or there’s an explanation. How refreshing to actually hear a celebrity admit to wrongdoing. Although I want to give Dave kudos, I don’t exactly want to pat him on the back for doing the right thing, either.
The person I really feel for in all this is his wife, Regina Lasko [photos here]. How embarrassing. I couldn’t even begin to imagine!
Honestly, I’m a bit surprised that he actually could commit adultery at his age, but hey, all hail to the drug industry.
Wow. This sounds shocking at first, but then on closer examination, Letterman’s behavoir is pretty tame. I mean he had sex. With women. Yeah, they worked for him, but they are not minors, or men, or international drug dealers. As far a scandals go, this one is tame. Letterman is not a partier, out-of-control sex freak, or public masturbator. At worst, he should have to attend a sexual harassment seminar and go and sin no more. Great story, though…
dave is the man!!
Hypocrite nonetheless. He has to protect his family! Did he think of his family while jumping on the bones of his female employees? Especially ugly is that these women depended on him for their livelihood, so they were not really in position to say “no”, because that could mean not just to loose job at CBS, but to be out of showbusiness for good.