David Letterman is in hot water at home.
At the taping for tonight’s “Late Night” show, the uncharacteristically subdued CBS funnyman told the audience that he has his work cut out for him with his wife Regina Lasko, the mother of his 6-year-old son.
“She has been horribly hurt by my behavior, and when something happens like that, if you hurt a person and it’s your responsibility, you try to fix it,” he said. “And at that point, there’s only two things that can happen: either you’re going to 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 folks, I got my work cut out for me.”
Letterman also apologized to his staff.
“I’m terribly sorry that I put the staff in that position. Inadvertently, I just wasn’t thinking ahead,” he said. “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.”
“He was very sincere,” said Larry West, an audience member visiting from College Station, Texas.
After a loud and long round of applause from the audience, Letterman started his monologue by saying, “Did your weekend just fly by?”
“I’ll be honest with you folks right now I’d give anything to be hiking on the Appalachian Trail,” he then said in reference to where South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford’s said he was when he was in fact with his Argentinian mistress.
“I got into the car this morning and the navigation lady wasn’t speaking to me,” he added.
Letterman has admitted to fooling around on Lasko during their two decades of dating. They married in March.
In a bombshell on-air confession last Thursday, Letterman said he had affairs with female staff members and said he was being extorted by someone threatening to release the steamy details.
‘’48 Hours” producer Joe Halderman was arrested and charged in the alleged $2 million shakedown scheme.
In apologizing to his staff, audience members noted that Letterman said he was sorry for not specifying that the flings were with past employees, and not current staff members.
“I thought he was very humble,” said Larry Leskowitz, of Brooklyn Heights.
“He apologized to his staff…he admitted he was in trouble at home. He knows he hurt a lot of people.”
Though fans said Letterman was distracted, the late night king still managed to trade barbs about his woes with guests Steve Martin, Martin Short and “Glee”’ star Lea Michele.
“He played off the audience reaction, but he was rigid. You could tell he was uncomfortable,” said fan Jerry Harper.
When Martin noted that he’d had a great weekend, Letterman countered that his own “hadn’t been so great,” noted Leskowitz.
And when Michele spoke of risk-taking on her show, Letterman quipped, “You’re talking to a guy who knows a lot about risk,” West recalled.
At one point, Martin and Short did a ventriloquist schtick, West said, leading Letterman to say, “If you sit on his lap any longer, someone’s going to blackmail you!”
“You could tell his mind was somewhere else, but he was still funny,” West said.
Harper recalled that when someone made a comment about the chilly weather, Letterman responded, “Oh, if you think it’s chilly here…”
“He did everything he could to address the situation,” said Harper.