This extortion attempt was avoided after he went to the police and made a joke about it on national television. You know, the same way he made a joke about sexual relations with a fourteen-year-old girl, Willow Palin, and then tried to laugh off his apology.
"I'm motivated by nothing but guilt. If you know anything about me, I am just a towering mass of Lutheran Midwestern guilt," he said sarcastically, to audience applause.
The extortionist was going to make a screenplay about the "terrible things that I do," said Letterman, adding "Embarrassing, terrible things" for comedic effect.
The most egregious part of his confession came when he talked about specifics:
Now we get to, what was all the creepy stuff that he was going to put into the screenplay and the movie? And the creepy stuff is, I have had sex with women who work for me on this show. Now, my response is, yes I have. I have had sex with women who work on this show.Ah, so that's it: committing rampant and continuous infidelity on own family isn't a big deal -- it's the women who should be shamed. Talk about misogyny! But it's worse that he feigned even a semblance traditionally family life while conducting such extensive affairs. Letterman didn't even have the decency to marry Lasko until March, after he had been dating her for two decades and had fathered a child with her. But then he made light of it, to thunderous applause, on late-night television. "No class" doesn't even begin to describe it.
Applause.
And would it be embarrassing if it were made public? Yes it would. Especially for the women.