Most have enjoyed a dalliance/brief fumble with a colleague at some stage of our working lives, am I right? No? Cast your mind back... there you go. Anyway, they're always a bit embarrassing and, if they don't blossom into something extraordinarily wondrous (let's be honest, they usually don't), they're relegated to the dusty cupboard in the corner of the brain that only gets opened at some dark, lonely hour on a Sunday evening.
Now, imagine if you were approached by a distant co-worker and blackmailed into giving them a few bob, otherwise they're going to reenact exactly what happened in a skit at the pending Christmas Party... This was the predicament David Letterman found himself in recently. Here is the back story, according to WENN:
"U.S. talkshow veteran DAVID LETTERMAN was forced to testify in front of a New York grand jury on Thursday (01Oct09), after becoming a victim of an extortion plot over his sexual affairs with staff members. The Late Show host revealed to his studio audience during the live taping of Thursday's show that he had been targeted by an unknown individual who had details of intimate relations he had had with female employees. The blackmailer demanded $2 million (£1.3 million) to keep the information out of the public domain. Letterman claims he handed over the plot to the Special Prosecution Bureau of the Manhattan District Attorney's office, who went as far as to issue a false cheque to the person. The star was then asked to provide a testimony for the city's grand jury, in which he confirmed he had sexual encounters with members of his team."
Last night, Letterman recounted exactly what happened to his studio audience. You can watch footage of his frank and rather humourous chat here. Otherwise, here's a rough transcript:
"I have a little story I have to tell you. Do you feel like a story? This started three weeks ago yesterday. I got up early and in the back seat of my car is a package I don't recognise... I don't usually receive packages on the back seat of my car at 6 in the morning. There's a letter in the package and it says "I know that you do some terrible, terrible things. And I can prove that you do these terrible things." And sure enough, contained in the package was stuff to prove that I do terrible things. At 6 in the morning - and maybe this looks better to you at noon - but at 6 in the morning, all you can think about is every terrible thing you've ever done in your entire life... So I study it, and a guy is going to write a screenplay about me. And that's good news for anyone, really... but he's going to put all these terrible things into a movie, unless I give him some money... I thought, and this is the word I actually used, I thought 'That's a little hinky'."
David then said he called his attorney, who suggested a meeting with "the Guy" (who, as it turns out, works "the true-crime show 48 Hours"). After a meeting with said guy, who confirmed he was indeed going to put all the terrible things he's done into a screenplay, Letterman and his attorney called the Special Prosecution Bureau. They said "Woah, this is blackmail. So they issued a phony cheque:
"So now this guy is walking around New York City with a phony cheque for 2million Dollars. Although he's given no guarantees, he's still saying 'You know, you never know, I may just go ahead and write the books and I may just go ahead and write the screenplay. So, for that guarantee he's got a phony cheque for 2million dollars. So, this morning I did something I've never done in my life... I had to go downtown and testify before a grand jury… I had to tell them all of the creepy things that I had done. Now why is that funny? OK, if they believe a crime has been committed, they issue a warrant, and that's exactly what happened. And a little bit after noon today the guy was arrested.
Now, what was it, what was all the creepy stuff that he was going to put into the screenplay. And the creepy stuff was that I have had sex with women that work for me on this show. Now, my response to that is, yes I have. I have had sex with women who work on this show. And would it be embarrassing if it were made public? Perhaps it would. Especially for the women. But that's a decision for them to make, if they want to go public and talk about the relationships, or if I want to go public about the relationships. But what you don't want is some guy going 'ooooh, I know you had sex with women, so I would like 2million Dollars, or I'm gonna make trouble for you'."
Letterman then thanked everyone who helped him during this troubling time, finishing with, "It's been a very bizarre experience. I feel like I need to protect these people, I need to certainly protect my family, need to protect myself, hope to protect my job… and I don't plan to say much more about this particular topic. So thank you for letting me bend your ear."
Letterman married longtime partner Regina Lasko (who he has a kiddie with) in March this year. "It is not known when the flings occurred."