To “Late Show” viewers, David Letterman comes off as a geeky talk-show host uncomfortable in his own skin.
But behind the scenes, the gap-toothed king of late-night TV is a “Jesus”-like figure to his female staffers — his sexual “electricity” driving them insane with desire, a new report says
“It’s like a cult,” a former “Late Show” insider told Vanity Fair magazine for its feature on the 62-year-old Letterman.
“You arrive as an intern and stay for life, and people do fall in love with Dave and behave in a way that might not be considered appropriate in a professional working environment.
PHOTOS: LETTERMAN EXTORTION PLOT
“It was intoxicating to me, and I could see how someone could cross the line. It’s like Jesus Christ saying, ‘Hey, let’s go to dinner!’ You’re going to go, ‘Wow! He chose me!’ If he’d hit on me, I probably would have accepted.”
And many women staffers did — most notoriously schoolgirl-like Stephanie Birkitt. Her long affair with the married Letterman allegedly drove her live-in boyfriend, Robert Joe Halderman, so crazy when he caught them necking in his driveway that he now faces criminal charges that he shook down the host for $2 million by threatening to expose their trysts.
Halderman, a top producer at CBS’s “48 Hours,” was busted last September for the purported shakedown, which Letterman shockingly revealed on air at the same time he confessed to bedding multiple women who toiled for his show.
That confession stunned the public, which had not previously viewed the socially awkward, self-loathing funnyman as a lustful Lothario whose mojo made maidens moan.
“I’ve come in contact with countless celebrities, and only two emit a tangible, almost magnetic force, an electricity that draws you to them: David Letterman and Bill Clinton,” former Letterman segment producer Madeleine Smithberg cooed to Vanity Fair.
“The man is electric! I was there for six years. You want to be with him, you want to be close to him. And when you are, you feel good. It’s like you’re basking in the buzz of Dave.”
Letterman’s wandering eye can’t have surprised his current wife, Regina Lasko, whom he first bedded while she was working for him, and while he still was in a longtime relationship with his former head writer and girlfriend, Merrill Markoe.
“I was spending time in LA trying to start projects of my own, and was naive enough not to be especially paranoid, because not only did he and I continue to work together, but I, like Tiger Woods’ wife, was under the impression that my flawless, Scandinavian-supermodel good looks were enough to keep a man at home,” Markoe cracked.