I’ve been a fan of Letterman practically since his first Late Night show, and although I recall him being a bit more abrasive in the NBC show, I honestly don’t recall him being as much of a jerk as you seem to think he is. If he’s that bad, there must be some YouTube clips you can show me.
Are you sure you’re not thinking of Jay Leno, whose “Jaywalking” segments always made me cringe? I admit Jay mainly let those people expose their own idiocy, and wasn’t especially nasty about it, but he was always pretty damn smug. And there’s something rather unpleasant about holding up people as village idiots on national TV, even if they agreed to it.
I’m not a lawyer, but the NYT discusses this as a likely reason for a plea bargain - but not one for dropping the charges. There’s no reason for Letterman to drop the charges at this point since the biggest potential revelation is already public.
How? The guy delivered pictures and a diary entry and demanded money in return for not making details of Letterman’s life public. The fact that the details were written up in a screenplay instead of a note made up of letters cut out from a magazine wouldn’t convince anybody.
By the way, who reported that there were pictures involved? I don’t think I’ve read that anywhere. And, more importantly, how, ahem, “private” were the photos?
No, I don’t have cites. These are just things I remember from watching his show occasionally over the years. They were pretty much the same kind of thing that you spoke of with Leno, only in a more cruel vein.
Remember how Cher told Letterman she’d avoided his show for so long because she thought he was an asshole? There are reasons why he’s regarded this way, and it is those reasons that I’m talking about.
The occasions I’m talking about have generally been times when he felt his guest was being dull and chose to make them look bad in order to make the segment more entertaining, or with tourists and people on the street.
I wouldn’t have any idea what to search for on Youtube to find them though.
I don’t recall Dave being especially mean to tourists and others in his schtick. Do you mean when they pick someone from the crowd to go into Rupert’s deli to play “name that sandwich” or some stupid thing? Is that being mean? At least they get a deli platter out of the deal (though it’s a much diminished deli platter than it used to be.) … There was one time Dave sent Rupert, wearing an earpiece, out into the streets, and Rupert was to repeat whatever Dave was saying in his ear. So he walked around sounding like an unmedicated schizophrenic and accosting people, asking really idiotic questions, and I had to turn it off. I was actually fearing for Rupert’s safety! But that was years ago, they don’t do that kind of Jackass-thing any more! … And what all this has to do with an extortion plot is beyond me, but I felt I had to put my two cents in about “mean cruel Dave”.
