Tabloid update: "David Letterman's Lover's Story"

At first blush it appeared that the David Letterman womanizing story would be a motherlode of jokes to rival the Clinton administration, but it turns out the story is more poignant than funny.

The National Enquirer paid everybody and found out that Stephanie Birkitt was David Letterman's longtime girlfriend at the same time Regina Lasko was his longtime girlfriend. Regina was in Westchester and Stephanie was in Manhattan. Stephanie knew about Regina but Regina didn't know about Stephanie. Stephanie wanted to get pregnant but Regina got pregnant first.

Letterman only married Regina after a "bitter ultimatum" and Stephanie took pleasure in the fact that the wedding was a low-key affair at a Montana courthouse.

The wedding to Regina didn't end the affair with Stephanie. Letterman paid Stephanie a salary of $200,000 a year, and he paid for her law school tuition, and he bought her a house, and he offered to hire her as his "personal" attorney. He put her in charge of his Indy racing team so they'd have an excuse to be there together. He invited her on family vacations and fooled around with her when his wife was elsewhere.

The most cringe-inducing detail in the tabloids this week is the report that Letterman couldn't bring himself to tell his mother about the breaking scandal, so she heard about it in a phone call from his wife.

Second place goes to this: "Letterman liked Stephanie to play 'dress up,'" the National Enquirer's sources said. "He had Stephanie re-enact some of his favorite 'Stupid Pet Tricks' -- with Stephanie as the pet!"

What a betrayal.

Merrill Markoe wrote that bit.


Copyright 2009

Editor's note: You might be interested in the earlier post, "David Letterman's stimulus package."

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