The news broke on October 1, 2009: David Letterman had multiple affairs with female staffers. And, he was being blackmailed for $2 million. Yikes.
The story is not uncommon - man cheating on his wife; employer sleeping with employee; celebrity guilty of, well, something!
The question now becomes, "Is there a lawsuit coming?" We live in America -
of course there's a lawsuit coming! A better question is how many or which kinds of lawsuits? It's not yet clear if this is grounds for a sexual harassment suit - either by the women he slept with, or by the other staffers who had to work in this environment. This article from
Find Law is a great breakdown on the possible, legal implications of his actions, as well as a differentiation between types of harassment and whether there is a case here (if legal nuances bore you, you may want to skip to the second half of the article).
Even more interesting is the discussion about the working environment at
The Late Show, and in the workplace, in general. Nell Scovell, a former writer from
The Late Show, wrote a compelling, personal tale in
Vanity Fair of what it was like to work for Letterman; what is was like to not be the object of his affection; to know your career would not progress because you were one of his... types. It is clearly hard enough to be a writer in these all-male dominated writing rooms of late night television (Conan, Leno, and Letterman all employ NO female writers), but how much harder must it be when you're juggling sexual politics as well?
So many issues have surfaced because of this story. Hopefully, people will not shy away from discussing appropriate and inappropriate behavior in the workplace. Obviously, some people meet their significant others at their jobs (David Letterman's wife was a production staffer at
Late Night when they met). On his last show, Jay Leno introduced us to over 60 kids who had been born to staffers who met while working for the show over the past 17 years. These were staff members... but, shouldn't the boss be held to a higher standard? When your name appears above the building you walk into everyday, don't you set the tone for everything that goes on there? This article in
New York Magazine seems to suggest as much where it quotes one former staffer as saying of Dave and his assistants: "They rule by fear. You don’t want to make Dave mad or so-and-so mad, so you better do a good job. Everyone there is scared of their shadow all the time.”
With that type of working environment, how many women who value their jobs are willing to turn an advance away? And, how many more struggle to figure out how they can get in the boss' good graces? It's a complicated situation, no question . . . But, completely avoidable.
Couldn't resist:
The Top Ten Things To Learn From David Letterman's Escapades:
10. Extortion? Not cool.
9. It may never be clear whether these women had relationships with Letterman to advance their careers, because they felt they had to, or just because they wanted to.
8. Hitting on people who work for you is in the least inappropriate, at worst sexual harassment.
7. Not hitting on some, while hitting on others, is sexual favoritism and can create a "hostile work environment."
6. Late-night talk shows have no female writers.
5. This will probably do nothing to Letterman's popularity, but let's hope it fosters change in the business of The Late Show.
4. Blackmail is the least of David Letterman's concerns.
3. The ignorance in the "Comments" section of Letterman-related articles is astounding.
2. Apparently, none of us would understand the reference of a "head cheerleader" without accompanying it with an insult: a former staffer said, "...I think he's also going for easy targets... He's not going to ask the head of the cheerleading team to prom. He's going to ask the head of the band or something." (What did the head of the band do to you?!)
1. Don't cheat on your wife.
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