Hot Trailer: ‘The Great Gatsby’ 
How Did Women Pilot Writers Fare For 2012? 
Disney Quits Snow White Film ‘Order Of The … 
Cannes Planning Surprise Screening Of Non-Fest Films; … 
ReelzChannel Acquires U.S. Rights To ‘Pillars’ … 
Investors Unfriend Facebook As SEC Investigates IPO … 
Cash Windfalls For WME Agents, Assistants 
A&E IndieFilms Sets ‘Happy Valley,’ … 
Hot Cannes Property: Natalie Portman, Lynne Ramsay Team On … 
Brad Pitt Hits Cannes With ‘Killing Them … 
CNN Hits 20-Year Weekday Primetime Low 
Longtime TV Exec Rod Perth Named NATPE President & CEO 
RATINGS RAT RACE: ‘House’ Ends Run On High-Ish … 
Does Cable News Clarify Or Confuse The Public’s … 
Mark Burnett’s Company Launches Scripted Unit, Taps … 
‘Mary Mother Of Christ’ In Lionsgate Deal 
Icon UK Group Joins ‘The Butler’; Forest … 
HBO Developing Comedy Series Starring Catherine Keener And … 
Legendary’s Thomas Tull Among Just 3 Contenders … 
Harvey Weinstein Unveils ‘The Master’, … 
Cable Execs Warn That Dish Network’s Ad-Zapping DVR … 
FRIDAY UPDATE: Bizarrely, the alleged extortionist was revealed to be CBS News producer Robert Halderman, who has directed dozens of 48 Hours documentaries. He was arrested on attempted grand larceny charges and today pleaded not guilty. Just a reminder that David Letterman’s independent production company Worldwide Pants, which produces CBS’ Late Show and Late Late Show, is not owned by CBS.
8:30 PM UPDATE: CBS has issued this statement:
CBS was made aware of an ongoing police investigation involving David Letterman and an employee at 48 Hours, who was subsequently arrested earlier today on charges of attempted grand larceny in the first degree. CBS is cooperating fully with the authorities and the employee has been suspended pending the results of the investigation. Mr. Letterman addressed the issue during the show’s broadcast this evening, and we believe his comments speak for themselves.
I’ve been given this statement by David Letterman’s people:
David Letterman, during a taping of tonight’s Late Show, said that there has been a recent attempt made to extort money from him.
Letterman said that three weeks ago he received a package from an individual who claimed to have information about Letterman’s alleged sexual relationships with female employees of the Late Show and threatened to reveal them if Letterman did not pay the individual a large sum of money. Subsequently, according to Letterman, the individual identified the necessary sum to be $2 million.
Letterman said that he referred the matter to the Special Prosecution Bureau of the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, 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.
“This morning, I did something I’ve never done in my life,” said Letterman. “I had to go downtown and testify before a grand jury.”
Letterman said that, in his testimony, he acknowledged sexual relationships with members of his staff.
“My response to that is, yes I have. Would it be embarrassing if it were made public? Perhaps it would,” said Letterman. “I feel like I need to protect these people – I need to certainly protect my family.”
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
Loading ...
Dave made a very tragic, yet human mistake.
It was wrong, and no one realizes that more than Dave.
I imagine $2 million dollars would pale in comparison to his own humiliation with himself at this moment.
He possessed the financial means to have easily made this “go away” – and no one would have ever known. However, he didn’t. He squarely faced his frailty in front of everyone.
I pray his family can forgive him.
I pray in time he can forgive himself.
VERY well said.
Well it looks like Sarah Palin will have the last laugh after all and yes she should sit down and fully enjoy it. David Letterman is finding out “all that goes around comes around”.
The angry liberal jackass finally gets his just desserts. Hopefully this news is followed by a juicy sexual harassment lawsuit. Letterman is number one. Number one shmuck.
Jeezus!
1st Travolta, now this?
What’s up w/ all the extortion plots?
Congrats on the scoop, Nikki.
Good to see this wretched coward get exposed before he retired.
He is what we thought he was – a loser.
This is definately disapointing. I kind of thought Dave was more of a wholesome, small-town kink of guy who wasn’t into this type of “showbiz” lifestyle, including affairs with the staff. I hope these affairs happened a long time ago, before his sone was born, and preferably before he got married last March, but, most likely, he did this very recently, and that’s just a shame.
Now just wait for the current/former staffers who had the affairs with Dave to start writing books and doing interviews for TMZ. The blackmailer might have been caught, but there will still be alot of money to be made for the ladies involved in the affairs. Too bad.
affairs with his staff? who else then? It’s the people you spend the most time with. this happens e v e r y w h e r e. Puhleeze.
Dave Rocks!
I give Letterman credit for going to the DA, not giving into extortion, and owning up to his escapades.
Something I doubt I would ever see someone on the Red Elephant Party ever do.
Oh, IDK. If Dave was sincere about wanting to protect his family, maybe he wouldn’t have been sticking it into various members of his staff in the first place?
Just sayin’.
How rich! Another unfaithful perv out of the closet!!
Shut up, Kendra.
Holy Crap.
Dave Letterman is a sleazy old fuc* for sleeping with people that were working under him. It was unsettling and disturbing to see the audience cheer when he said he slept with other women.
Another celebrated misogynistic a-hole. I can’t wait to hear all the dirt on this guy. Karma, don’t you just love it! Please Dave, pontificate on morals some more!
The next best thing will be hearing all the loons defend this piece of garbage. No doubt the same people who defended Polanski.
I wonder if Letterman were a Conservative, if the response would be so muted? *ROTFLMAO* Yea,sure!
And it was a CBS News producer who was behind the extortion. From the NY Daily News:
He went on to explain that a man identified by police as Robert Halderman, a 51-year-old Emmy Award-winning producer, found out that he was sleeping with several staff members
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv/2009/10/01/2009-10-01_david_letterman_reveals_extortion_plot_con_man_wanted_2m_for_sex_secrets.html#ixzz0SlLMHrLJ
His Chickens have come home to roost.
Stop making an “asterix” of yourself. Dave has never been “number 1″ in my book. I don’t condone extortion but I find it laughable that the left won’t find it outrageous that a man exercised his power by exploiting a number of his female staffers. Leave it to the hypocrisy of the left to give a pass to lecherous characters like Bill Clinton and David Letterman while we all know the “field day” they would have if the focus of this story had been someone like Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck. If we are going to call a spade a spade, David Letterman is a scum bag pure and simple.
“exploting a number of his female staffers” yes, those helpless f*cking, consenting adults.
Extortion is wrong, but I don’t get the part about him saying he needs to protect his family. If he really wanted to protect his family, he wouldn’t be sleeping around with a bunch of his staffers in the first place.
…so Dave the Boss abuses his position of power to sleep with multiple staff members? is that what i am reading? and this scumbag(if there every was one) picked on Palin & her daughter.
…sure extortion is bad but Dave is the one who screwed his staff and left them & himself open for the extortion. If he wanted to protect them he SHOULD NOT HAVE SCREWED THEM! get it Dave?
moron.
hollywood is a sewer, whether the left or right coast version.
Good for Dave. THAT’S how you handle a blackmail plot–by immediately going to the police.
And congrats, Nik, for being first with the scoop.
So Letterman is emulating Carson in yet another way. Classic!
As we know, the late-night war is mainly one of personal taste. With the lowest common denominator broad appeal of Leno’s “Tonight Show” gone, it was inevitable the masses would pick Letterman over O’Brien.
But now try and imagine this sequence of events playing out, especially the mastery of how that second segment was presented last night, with any other talk show host. Can’t. Even Carson couldn’t have handled this any better than Dave.
Tonight, we watch for how his lesser competition handles this. O’Brian and Kimmel mock their idol? Hmmm… I say no. But 10 PM Jay? And SNL?
Didnt this dumb girl know that the only way to cash and prizes is baby insurance?
Dave has some good lawyers.
Letterman is a dirty old man.
It’s bad enough that Letterman hasn’t been funny for years. Now
he’s just getting creepy. Yikes.
It’s really refreshing to see someone come out and be so candid. Compare this to many similar situations where the person tries to conceal what happened or attacks anyone disclosing the info. I’m not condoning, one way or the other, Mr. Letterman’s earlier actions that resulted in the episode (that’s for he and his family to work out not us), but applaud him for being up front with his viewers.
I’m not sure if “candid” is the way to describe what he did. More like damage control. He knew the story was going to break, people would find out, and tried to get out in front to put his spin on it. Did a pretty good job of it, but this wasn’t really a voluntary admission on his part.