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So I’ll say what other media haven’t the guts to point out as they speculate on whether CBS will investigate David Letterman’s single man sex with staffers at his independent production company Worldwide Pants (which neither CBS nor Viacom own): This fish stinks from the head. As I’ve reported previously, and more than once, CBS boss Les Moonves professionally and personally crossed the line of propriety when, of all the women in the world from which to choose, he began a series of adulterous affairs with network underlings, but it was his relationship with The Early Show’s co-anchor Julie Chen that broke up his 24-year marriage. Not only did Viacom bigwig Sumner Redstone overlook that, but the old coot himself over the years, whether he was married or not, openly shtupped one of his producer girlfriends while she had Paramount and/or CBS deals. Which are all violations of so many corporate codes of conduct that I don’t think I can count that high.
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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Now we know how Letterman got away with it for so long.
Any other company and someone would have said: “For the love of Xenu! Keep it in you goddamn pants, or they’re going to get sued off of you!”
I think this blackmail story is going to be the tip of the iceberg, and I think we’ll be seeing a parade of women claiming sexual harassment from Letterman, and pressure to keep their mouths shut by CBS.
And as for Dave making his case, I’ve noticed that the only statements he seems to be making are on his own show, where everything is under his control. He’s going to have to come out from behind his desk, or people will get even more turned off. Expect a 60 Minutes interview during November sweeps to “put all this behind him” but it will have so many softballs it’ll make Barbra Walters look like Torquemada.
Nikki, I think you’re tone-deaf on this with the ‘single man sex’ comment. He’s the boss and owns a huge production company, with limitless opportunities for ambitious staffers. Like the one who went from gopher to on-air personality, all while coincidentally having sex with the man in charge.
It’s not consensual with that imbalance of power, and to have to even say that after all these years is just depressing. As with the Polanski fiasco, just admit that anything is okay if the ‘right’ people do it.
Well said, Joe. However, Nikki’s “single man sex” reference seems to be the case as far as we know for now.
No need to tell you, despite it all, it boils down to the cash.
My question is why the women writers allow such an alarmingly low number of women to be part of these gang comedy writing teams. Seriously, there are perhaps 2 of 30 writers who are women on the late night shows, etc. Then Letterman decides to sleep with one of them? People that IS sexual harassment, whether it meets the legal definiation or not. Come on…use the head above your belt.
This goes way back if you remember. Merrill Markoe?
They aren’t really hypocrites if they don’t investigate Letterman because they, too, are guilty of the same sin. That’s actually the exact opposite of a hypocrite. They’d be hypocrites if they DID investigate him.
Interestingly, the executive vice president, operating, production and creative chief of Worldwide Pants for the past several years has been a woman, Valerie Schaer. Who obviously was aware of Letterman’s behavior and looked the other way. And even more interestingly, Schaer left WWP a couple of months ago for an EVP position at Harpo, Inc., where she heads Creative Development under Tim Bennett.
Letterman’s need not simply to have sex with young women, but to actually have long term relationships with them, is what makes this story so sick and sordid. The idea that spilling it out on one show is going to make it go away is implausible. It’s just going to get worse and worse. How sick is it to essentially be a bigamist with a common law wife and child at home, the common law wife being age appropriate, and need to have a second full time relationship with a college girl?
Decades ago there was a local TV morning show in New York hosted by a fellow named Stanley Siegel. One of his clever bits was to have his real life psychologist on the show and do a real, not-rehearsed, session with her. Perhaps Dave would like to do that for us on Late Night. Live psychoanalysis with a confrontational shrink who forces him to confront his behavior.
You want Letterman to see a shrink for being a man? Men like to have sex with a variety of women. Men like to have sex with younger women. This is natural evolutionary biology. If I meet a heterosexual man who claims that he does not have either of these desires and does not understand why other men do, I would refer HIM to a shrink.
Maybe your problem is not with Dave, but with human nature.
Wow Roman I did not know they let you have internet access in jail.
What — you’re shocked that older men are attracted to younger women? That men are attracted to many women? What planet are you living on? As Chris Rock said — “A man is only as faithful as his options.” Dave is a rich, famous, powerful and funny. He has many options, and acted in a way most men in his position would. Deal with it.
And your comparison of Letterman’s adult relationship with Polanski’s behavior with a 13-year-old reveals how stupid and full of shit you are. You can’t deny the truth of what I have said, so you have to throw out some ridiculous analogy as a non-sequitur.
Letterman and the lady were adults. Unless he threatened to fire her for turning down his advances, it was a consensual relationship. In that case, its none of your fucking business.
It is all of our business because, Letterman, being a far left dirbag, has made a living out of ridiculing others. Now it is our turn. And just because men like younger women does not mean they have to act on it.
Well that explains why there are so few female writers…girls, there’s only so much Dave to go around.
It’s only sexual harassment if he tried to use his power to coerce someone into doing something they didn’t want to do. Did he coerce anyone? Did he threaten to fire someone if she didn’t have sex with him? (If so, he deserves to be exposed.)If I decide to have sex with my boss (which I’ve done) does that mean that by the very nature of the relationship I’m incapable of giving consent? Does being “ambitious” excuse someone from being responsible for herself? After all these years, I find Mr Melnick’s characterization of women as helpless victims depressing.
Harassment laws allow anyone affected by unwelcome, discriminatory conduct to file a discrimination charge against a harasser directly with the EEOC (or state equivalent) or through an attorney, even if he or she was not the intended victim.
I’m sure that the lawyers are already working the hallways at CBS so they can file a case against them and Letterman.
I don’t think that has anything to do with it. They won’t investigate Letterman because they can’t touch Letterman. What are they going to do to him? Fire him when he is finally leading the ratings? Fine him? Whatever they did he would tell them to fuck themselves and they would.
This all aside from the fact the these were not even CBS employees, they were WWP… so WTF can CBS do anyway?
Nikki, I can’t believe you are negating a 21 years relationship by calling Dave’s behavior a single man having sex with staffers. He was was in a long term relationship that produced a six year old child, and he was banging his young assistant and put her on the air.
I am flabbergasted by your recent postings. I always thought that you will come down on the side of what is right and let the chips fall where they might, but your defense of Polanski and now Letterman makes me wonder.
Entertainment coverage is either too sycophant or too Gotcha and hardly anything in between, well most times you have been that in between but lately you are veering too close to being a mouth piece for some.
I think Nikki is referring to Letterman’s legal status rather than his real life status.
Enough of the faux outrage and shock over this non-story. Women are naturally attracted to powerful men. Denying that is like denying that men are attracted to big breasts. Since women choose who they sleep with, men behave in any way that women will respond to. David became a powerful and famous guy in order to attract women. It worked, and he cashed in. Good for him.
The only people upset about this are those who are jealous of someone else getting laid.
THANK YOU. The criminal is the douchebag who tried to blackmail him. Extortion is a serious crime and Dave et al are the victims. It never ceases to amaze me how people can use a puritanical rationale to indulge their prurient interests. This creep may not have gotten his 2 mil but now he’ll get what every cheeseball wannabe wants–a room of his own and time to write a best seller. Ain’t it the American dream?
Even Letterman is allowed to have sex.
Now it’s okay with you for Letterman to schutp his employees — and for 40 years we’ve been inundated with NOW and the like telling us NO male boss/female underling affair is without some form of coersion — like it’s an outrage for you that Polanski was “tricked” into getting arrested? If this was a conservative entertainment figure doing this with his employees, would your reaction be as dismissive? Doubt it.
I’m glad to see I’m not the only one who sees what a creepy hypocrite you are, Nikki.
The guy has an independent production company and can do whatever he wants. If women choose – THE WORD IS CHOOSE – to have sex with their boss or others in the workplace, that’s where the argument ends. Look, whether some of the puritans like it or not, it happened, it’s over and everyone has moved on with the exception of this black mailing larcenist. Give Dave some credit. He came forward, he told the story and fessed up. That’s a lot more than we can say about some of these other jackasses out there.
What “corporate code”?
Moonvees is a real prize but as long as Redstone is happy with the job he is doing for CBS (despite marrying that no talent hack Julie Chen, who now has a job for life as long as he’s steering the ship), then it’s all under the bridge, sort to speak but this Stephanie Birkitt, who isn’t even remotely attractive, is the center of all this sleeping with Letterman and this nitwit producer from 48 hours and if they’re blowing him out then she needs to join him too.
Uh, Nikki, you mention Les Moonves and Sumner Redstone — why overlook Brad Grey? As far as moral compasses go, Brad Grey is a gyroscopic mishap of human decency.
People meet at work and fuck. Get over it.
Having said that, if the entertainment industry is going to switch over to being merit-based please let me know so I can dig my masters degree in theater out of the garage.
Now that CBS has cancelled “Guiding Light” perhaps they can
fill the time slot with the new soap Opera “CBS” Powerfull men
jumping from bed to bed. The only reason it might not make the line up is all the men are over 60.
Letterman doesn’t work for CBS.
Well, if you only know one thing about Dave, it’s about how intensely private he is. So, this must be absolute torture for him.
Worse than torture. This has probably been the longest weekend of his life.
As for people saying that Dave should meet girls outside of work, they all work so much, there is no real outside of work.
All that being said, if even *one* female pursues a lawsuit, it will trigger an avalanche, and you can bet the ambulance chasers are workin’ on that right now.
Who says it will be a female who pursues a lawsuit? If any of her coworkers feel she had preferencial treatment because of sleeping with the boss they can sue for discrimination.
I’m wondering now if there are going to be suits alleging that Dave had long term affairs with stage manager Biff Henderson and neighbor/deli owner Rupert Jee. Seriously, folks, almost everyone who has ever worked on Letterman who is willing to appear on camera has at one time or another. If it works, they get asked to appear again and again.
I really don’t see any legal ramifications here. So he’s a man-whore — is this really such a huge deal? For the record I am a female and have dated men at the workplace who were in senior positions to mine – as two consenting adults choosing mutually to become romantic. The first one was when I was 17 and my boss was 25. I was smitten and have no regrets 20 years later. I’m not sure what the big whoop is here; according to reports, the one woman at the center of this has said very positive things about Letterman, and the one photo of them together looks like they are both happy. The worst thing you can say is that he cheated on his girlfriend – he was not married or a father yet. Am I crazy or is this mostly a non-story?
I honestly can’t believe how this got out in the first place unless if the goal is to create controversy in order to drive viewers to the Late Show and kill the Tonight Show in the process. He most likely had the affairs before he met his wife and even if he didn’t, the CBS Late Show began in 1993 and Harry Letterman was born 10 years later. In Dave’s case, he intended no harm just as Joie Chen intended no harm in having a sexual relationship with Les Moonves. The only problem with the latter was that a marriage was broken up.
I can’t believe the story got out either. Perhaps the network was getting ready to retire the late night host anyway? It would save face with the network honchos who are looking to replace Letterman down the road.
Of course, protecting marriages is what we want our employers to do.
What is the big f***ing deal. The guy had an office affair. Not the smartest move in the world, but it happens every day between myopic consenting adults.