A poster on an al Qaeda message board has called for a jihad against David Letterman after the late-night host made a joke about a killed terrorist. From Sarah Palin and Madonna to a stalker and an extortionist, see other figures Letterman antagonized on his way to the top.
After making a joke about Osama bin Laden, comedian David letterman made a true enemy—an al Qaeda–affiliated terrorist. After hearing the quip, a terrorist identifying himself as Umar al-Basrawi (Omar from Basra, Iraq) wrote a post on an al Qaeda forum, calling upon U.S. Muslims to kill Letterman. In the post, he said: “I have seen with my eyes and heard with my ears one of the scum of the Jews, one of their pigs, mocking the leaders of mujahedeen. We pray to Allah to paralyze his tongue, and that the righteous believers will break his neck. Isn’t there among you [a man like] Sayyid Nosair, the Egyptian, who can cut off the tongue of this lousy Jew and silenced him forever, just like his fellow Jew, Kahane?” Omar included this reference to Jewish activist Meir Kahane, killed in 1990, despite the fact that Letterman is not actually Jewish. One concerned official at a security firm said: “In general, you cannot write any of these off as a nonviable threat. These Internet threats have been a rallying cry to ‘have the guy’s head.’ If I am the guy targeted in one of those things, I would be taking it seriously and hunker down.”
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Although he was not as bad as a terrorist, Robert Joe Halderman probably still caused David Letterman a lot of stress. In 2009, according to Letterman, Halderman, a producer for 48 Hours sent Letterman a screenplay and a letter. In the letter, he allegedly threatened to publicly expose all of Letterman’s affairs if the comedian did not pay him $2 million. After attempting to cash a phony $2 million check, Halderman was arrested outside CBS headquarters in New York City. Part of the plot may have stemmed from the fact that Letterman and Halderman were both involved with the same woman, who was reportedly “mortified” when she learned of the plot. At the time, Letterman said, “I was worried for myself, I was worried for my family. I felt menaced by this, and I had to tell them all of the creepy things that I had done. The creepy stuff was that I have had sex with women who work for me on this show. My response to that is yes, I have. Would it be embarrassing if it were made public? Yes, it would, especially for the women."
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In 2009, while Sarah Palin was on a visit to New York, Letterman made a series of jokes about her family that did not sit well with the former Alaska governor. Palin attended a Yankees game with her 14-year-old daughter, Willow, and Letterman suggested that, “The toughest part of the visit was keeping Eliot Spitzer away from her daughter.” In another instance, the talk-show host suggested Alex Rodriguez had impregnated Palin’s daughter during the game. In response, Palin said, “'Laughter incited by sexually-perverted comments made by a 62-year-old male celebrity aimed at a 14-year-old girl is not only disgusting, but it reminds us some Hollywood/NY entertainers have a long way to go in understanding what the rest of America understands—that acceptance of inappropriate sexual comments about an underage girl, who could be anyone's daughter, contributes to the atrociously high rate of sexual exploitation of minors by older men who use and abuse others.” Letterman later apologized and said he had not been referring to Palin’s 14-year-old daughter in the jokes; he had mistaken her for Palin’s older daughter. That same week, Letterman joked that Palin, “bought makeup at Bloomingdale’s to complete her slutty flight attendant look.” After hearing about that comment, Palin said, “What a commentary there. That’s pretty pathetic, good ole David Letterman,” and added that it distracted from her purpose of being in New York, which was to participate in an event about autism.
In July 2011, after getting heckled at a karaoke bar, aspiring actor James Whittemore allegedly broke into the theater where Letterman tapes his shows and trashed its lobby. According to the criminal complaint, Whittemore used a metal stanchion to smash the glass doors and did about $5,000 worth of damage. Letterman’s actual set was unharmed. His lawyers say Whittemore was blackout drunk at the time and cannot remember any of the incident. Fortunately, the arresting officers corroborate the story. They said Whittemore was “blind drunk” when they caught him. It appears this was just a random incident and had nothing to do with any personal grudge against Letterman.
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Margaret Mary Ray became famous for stalking David Letterman over a period of years. She first came to the nation’s attention in May 1988, when she was caught while driving Letterman’s stolen Porsche. She claimed that she was Letterman’s wife. During the following decade, she often broke into Letterman’s house and claimed to be his lover. In one instance, Letterman and his girlfriend awoke during the night and saw Ray staring at them from the hallway. Letterman says that was the one time he ever felt threatened by her. In 1998, Ray committed suicide by kneeling in front of a train. For his part, Letterman claims that he felt compassion for her, never mentioning her name on air or pressing charges against her. “I wasn’t comfortable with the humanity of that,” he said.
Letterman and Madonna began their half-serious quarrel with the pop star’s 1994 appearance on the Late Show, an episode that has gone down in history as the “most censored in American network-television talk-show history” for Madonna’s repeated use of the word “f--k.” After introducing her as a megastar who has “slept with some of the biggest names in the industry,” an offended Madonna hijacked the show, walking on stage with her underwear in her hand, lighting up a cigar, asking Letterman embarrassing questions, and then refusing to leave the stage at the end of the interview. Both the FCC and the talk-show host were left flustered, but of course Letterman saved face with a joke as Madonna left the stage, joking that Mother Teresa would be stopping by in the next half hour. Madonna defended herself in a 1995 interview with Spin magazine. “The way he introduced me was derogatory,” she said. “so my whole thing was, OK, if that’s how you want to play it, you cannot beat me at this game.”
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What do you expect when two giant egos come head to head? The David-Donald public feud was first ignited when Letterman accused the mogul of being racist following some public comments he made about “our leaders” being “stupid” at an event in Nevada. An angry Letterman then asked Dr. Phil if he thought the comments were racist during his appearance on the Late Show. After Phil responded, “No I do not,” the host, clearly not in agreement said, "If he comes back on this show, and I am not sure we want him back on this show under these circumstances, he ought to be prepared to apologize just for that kind of behavior." An embittered Trump fought back with a letter, full of his usual self-righteousness. "I was disappointed to hear the statements you made about me last night on your show that I was a 'racist,'" Trump wrote. "In actuality, nothing could be further from the truth and there is nobody who is less of a racist than Donald Trump. Based upon your statements, and despite the fact that we have always done so well together, especially in your ratings, I am canceling my May 18th appearance on your show."
While certainly more benign than Letterman’s other sensational feuds, his brief squabble with Cher was probably the most brutally honest. During his first interview with the music legend, the host warmed things up by asking Cher why it took her four years to agree to come on the show. She beat around the bush at first, but when Letterman pressed her for details Cher answered frankly, “I thought that I would never want to do this show with you…” “Because you thought I was …” continued Letterman. Cher then gleefully finishes the sentence for him: “an asshole.” The crowd may have booed her, but a shocked Letterman laughed to himself and grew red before taking a hit of his cigar.
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The source of the alleged 16-year feud between the two talk-show legends has remained a mystery over the years, so much so that Oprah claims she was never aware of the riff at all. But in 2010 Letterman told another famous host, Jon Stewart, that the debacle began when the two and their significant others were vacationing together. "She was with Stedman, I was with my then-girlfriend Regina. We were both at a restaurant having lunch on vacation. I said to Regina, 'Oh, this is hilarious, I'm gonna make Oprah buy us lunch.'" Many assumed the riff had began in 1995 when the comic Letterman made fun of her name in a speech at the Academy Awards, but the curmudgeon told Stewart, “This predates the Academy Awards. She hated me long before then.” Oprah finally agreed to appear on the Late Show in 2005 and played ignorant of the entire affair, finally burying the hatchet after a decade and a half.
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Likely the most epic of Letterman’s numerous public riffs, the war between the two great late-night hosts was in the cards from the beginning. The trouble began when NBC was looking for someone to replace Johnny Carson as host of The Tonight Show. Letterman and Leno were the two obvious choices in what became a highly publicized competition. Although Letterman’s show aired directly after Carson’s, Leno scored the job in the end, sparking a decades-long rivalry and exchange of barbs. Leno supposedly tried to wash away the bad blood after writing Letterman a letter when he had heart surgery. In 2009 the funny man told GQ he had written about “how funny I thought he was and how I owed him a lot. How important he was to me and all that,” but Letterman never responded. Letterman later expressed “empathy” for Leno in an interview with Rolling Stone after he was ousted by NBC last year.
