David Letterman publicly apologized to his wife, Regina Lasko, and to his staff, during his monologue Monday, October 5th, 2009.
Opening the show with a bit of humor, Letterman asked, “Did your weekend just fly by? I’ll be honest with you, right now I’d give anything to be hiking the Appalachian Trail.”
The joking took on a more serious tone when talking about the chill in the air. “It’s fall here in New York City, and I just spent the whole weekend raking my hate mail,” he said. “It’s chilly outside my house. It’s chilly inside my house.”
Letterman said his wife was “horribly hurt” by his behavior. “If you hurt a person and it’s your responsibility, you try to fix it” he said.
“At that point, there’s only two things that can happen. Either you make some progress and get it fixed, or you’re going to fall short and perhaps not get it fixed. So let me tell you folk, I got my work cut out for me.”
Letterman also apologized to his female colleagues, who have had to field “nasty” questions after his admission to having sex with some of them.
“I’m terribly sorry I put the staff in that position,” he said. “Inadvertently, I just wasn’t thinking ahead, and, moreover, the staff here has been wonderfully supportive to me, not just through this furor, but through all the years that we’ve been on television and especially all the years here at CBS, so, again, my thanks to the staff for, once again, putting up with something stupid I’ve gotten myself involved in.”
The Late Show host also insisted the affairs were in the past, and that he felt he did the right thing by breaking the news about the alleged extortion plot.
“Through all the attention the embarrassment and heartbreak, I still feel I did the right thing,” he said.
“48 Hours” producer, Robert (Joe) Halderman was arrested for allegedly blackmailing Letterman for $2 million.
Halderman used diary entries from his former live-in-girlfriend, Stephanie Birkitt — a Worldwide Pants staff member, to allegedly blackmail Letterman, although he denies the charges.
View David Letterman’s apology video below: