Long before Stephanie Birkitt was revealed as David Letterman’s squeeze, the funnyman was known to surround himself with beautiful young staffers who ministered to his daily needs — and favored women when it came to promotions.
Holly Hester, who interned for Letterman in the early ’90s while she was a student at NYU, said yesterday the two had a steamy, secret affair for a year.
She said Letterman called her one day and asked her to the movies, and they soon began seeing each other on the sly.
“I was madly in love with him at the time,” Hester told TMZ.com. “I would have married him. He was hilarious.”
Hester said the other staffers didn’t know she and Letterman were an item. He ended the romance because he said he felt he was too old for her, she said.
Letterman, 62, was also said to be particularly flirtatious with personal assistant Laurie Diamond, who a source said is a “longtime confidante” of the comic.
When asked if Diamond and Letterman had a romantic affair, show spokesman Tom Keaney said, “Laurie is going to decline comment.”
Sources said Letterman’s fondness for Diamond — who worked for him in the 1980s — went straight to her head.
“She just had an exceptionally high opinion of herself,” said one insider. “She was very content to go around saying, ‘Dave wants this. Dave wants that. Dave wants a BLT,’ but the BLT would actually be for her.
“She’s just a jerk, but she was a beautiful woman.”
Diamond could not be reached for comment on her affection for Letterman, but told The Post Friday, “A good assistant would never comment on [Letterman’s] personal life.”
She told the British paper The Daily Telegraph yesterday, “I don’t think women ever get over Dave.”
“Late Show” sources said female employees always did well under Letterman.
“Dave has a great track record of promoting women on the show — three of the five executive producers are women, and all of them have been with him for more than 20 years,” said another high-ranking “Late Show” staffer.
Another source described the show as “a very female-friendly place. He’s got all these strong women working for him. Strong women survive there.”
Tasks Letterman assigned his younger female workers ranged from doing his Christmas shopping to having his car ready at the theater exit.
Staffers were not surprised that the boss-employee relationship sometimes crossed the line.
“There’s always rumors. But I never heard of anyone saying that they were sexually exploited by him,” said one decade-long “Late Show” employee.
“He worked really hard all the time. It didn’t surprise me that there’d be something that would go on in the workplace.”
Two blond late-1990s interns from Brigham Young University — who were nicknamed the “flight attendants” — gushed to a campus magazine about their experience on the show.
“We deal with everything from contracts with his attorneys . . . down to making sure his car is running,” Heather Petersen told BYU Magazine.
“You remember every time he says ‘hi’ to you in the beginning. Every little moment.”
Additional reporting by Don Kaplan
and James Fanelli