Rivals give Letterman taste of his own medicine

If you live by the sword, you die by the sword. Certainly that adage proved true for talkshow host David Letterman at the weekend as he faced a barrage of mockery from his acid-tongued rivals.

The sharp-witted late-night TV star, who skewers the foibles of other celebrities, found himself on the end of the same treatment after being at the centre of a bizarre blackmail plot over his affairs with younger female staff members.

Jay Leno, Letterman's main opponent, did not hesitate to stick the knife in with his first on-air joke after the scandal broke. "If you came here tonight for sex with a talkshow host, you're in the wrong studio," Leno told his audience in his opening monologue. He then followed up by saying: "I have never had sexual relations with any of my staff."

That prompted a drummer in his studio band to storm off the stage in mock outrage while bandleader Kevin Eubanks quipped: "Jay, you're messing around on me?"

Another TV show host, Jimmy Fallon, cracked: "There's a new book out called Why Women Have Sex that has a list of the 237 reasons why women have sex, and Letterman knows the top 10."

Bill Maher on HBO joked: "I've never had sex with members of my staff - the guests, yes, of course, but not the staff."

The jibing will be a bitter experience for Letterman. Though he announced the news of his affairs and the blackmail plot on his own show - and has joked about it himself - the news has stunned America.

Letterman, a famously private individual, this year married his long-standing girlfriend and the mother of his child, Regina Lasko.

Now he finds himself at the centre of a storm that is likely to be good for ratings, but has made him the butt of jokes and gossip.

Despite his high profile, Letterman has always tried to keep his personal life out of the spotlight. He is often portrayed as the classic "serious clown" whose intense, driven private personality is at odds with his public image as a jokey, happy-go-lucky talkshow host.

But this latest grim episode is just the latest time Letterman's private life has entered the headlines. In 2005 he was the victim of a planned plot to kidnap his son, then 16 months old, and his nanny.

In that case a house painter who worked for the star had wanted to extort $5 million ($6.9 million) from him.

In another incident, a woman repeatedly stalked Letterman and eventually committed suicide in 1998.

Despite such incidents, many will see the latest episode as some sort of karmic revenge for Letterman's often merciless take on the moral lapses of others.

In his jokey quips and famous "top 10" lists Letterman and his team of writers have rarely pulled their punches. Gossip website Gawker headlined a post on the scandal: "Letterman haunted by ghosts of Monica Lewinsky jokes past."

Indeed, Letterman himself has already got in on the joke. As he announced the plot and details of his affairs to a stunned studio audience, and millions of viewers watching at home, Letterman could not resist cracking jokes at his own expense. "I know what you're saying. 'I'll be darned. Dave had sex'," he said.

- OBSERVER