Los Angeles - Talk show host David Letterman admitted on his show Thursday that he engaged in sexual relationships with female employees and that he went to the police when someone tried to extort him. The suspect was named Friday as Robert Joe Halderman, 51, a veteran CBS producer at the prestigious news magazine 48 Hours, who also worked on the Winter Olympics and produced numerous documentaries.
According an arrest warrant released by a local New York television station, Letterman was allegedly involved with Stephanie Birkitt, his former assistant , who was the suspect's girlfriend and was living with him until recently.
Letterman confessed to having sex with people on his staff in a remarkable few minutes of television. "This morning, I did something I have never done in my life," Letterman told his audience. "I had to go downtown and testify before a grand jury."
Letterman kept wisecracking throughout his confession as he revealed that he had received a package from an individual about three weeks ago threatening to make the affairs public if a payment of 2 million dollars was not received.
The audience laughed as Letterman described how he'd called his attorney and set up a meeting with the blackmailer in which the plotter told him he wanted to write a screenplay about him that included sordid details of the talk show host's life.
At a third meeting, Letterman, with the assistance of the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, handed the blackmailer a phony 2 million dollar check. It was then that the extortionist revealed he also planned to write a book about Letterman's life, also revealing details of his past sexual infidelities.
Letterman said that, in his testimony to the grand jury , 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, adding as a jokey aside:"Especially for the women."
"I feel like I need to protect these people - I need to certainly protect my family," he said.
Letterman, 62, did not reveal when the relationships took place. He married his long-time girlfriend last March and they have a 6-year-old child together.
The confession was treated by critics as an extraordinary moment in television, and a textbook example of how to deal with a scandal or crisis. "As it stands right now, what Letterman did last night was a striking, unique, and for all the laughter it provoked a dramatic example of how a celebrity deals with both a threat and a scandal," said Ken Tucker, the TV columnist at Entertainment Weekly.
Howard Kurtz, a media critic for The Washington Post, said Letterman handled the situation "reasonably well" but cautioned that late-night comedians have a "delicate" relationship with their audience, especially because they often point out the infidelities of others.
"Somebody's going to put together a tape with all the jokes Letterman has done about womanizing public figures," Kurtz told Robin Roberts on "Good Morning America." "So if he becomes a punchline himself, I don't think he will lose his job over this, but clearly it undermines his job as a performer."
