Letterman says sorry again – this time to wife Regina

The New York chat show host David Letterman has again publicly apologised for his infidelities. Addressing the Late Show audience last night, the 62-year-old followed up his earlier revelation that he had slept with female staffers by saying sorry to his wife, Regina Lasko.

"She has been horribly hurt by my behaviour, 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 married Lasko only last March, but they have been a couple for more than 20 years and have a six-year-old son.

Despite his awkward position, he could not resist a couple of jokes last night. "I got into the car this morning and the navigation lady wasn't speaking to me. Ouch." And then, aping the now traditional route to redemption for today's scandal-struck celebrities: "This is only phase one of the scandal, phase two - next week I go on Oprah and sob."

Letterman had admitted last Thursday that he had had affairs with women working on his show. He was forced to own up because he wanted to tell the story of how he had been the subject of a blackmail threat from someone demanding $2m to keep quiet about the affairs.

What Letterman did not admit to on Thursday was that the man was Robert 'Joe' Halderman, a producer on the CBS show 48 Hours. Nor did he own up to the fact that one of the women he had slept with was Stephanie Birkett, who had later become Halderman's girlfriend. It was after Halderman and Birkett broke up recently that the extortion is alleged to have occurred.

Halderman, who was arrested last week after accepting a phoney $2m cheque from Letterman in a sting operation run by the Manhattan Attorney-General's office, has pleaded not guilty to extortion charges.

Chatting to his studio audience last night, Letterman referred to Mark Sanford, the Governor of South Carolina, who lied about where he was when he was actually having a tryst with his mistress in Argentina. "I'll be honest with you folks," said Letterman, "right now I'd give anything to be hiking on the Appalachian Trail."