David Letterman says relationships with female staffers ‘are in the past’

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

On his show tonight, a self-deprecating David Letterman peppered his monologue with references to his revelation last week that he slept with female staffers and then addressed the topic again directly. “I wasn’t going to talk about it anymore, but it seems like people want to talk about it,” he said.

Letterman took pains to stress that the relationships he had with employees were a thing of the past. The comedian married his longtime girlfriend in March.

“It did not occur to me last week when I was discussing having had sex with women who worked on this show that then what would happen is reporters and newspaper people and radio and TV would start hounding the staff,” he said. “It was very, very unpleasant. And I would just like to set the record straight: No, I am not having sex with these women. These episodes are in the past. So my apologies to subjecting them to that vulnerability and being browbeaten and humiliated.”

Letterman noted that he was “a victim” of an attempted blackmail, adding: “You can’t be victimized by criminals, so you have to go ahead and push back if you’re being pushed by something illegal like this. And through all of the heartache and the attention and embarrassment, I still feel like I did the right thing.”

-- Matea Gold