Vanity Fair's April 2010 issue features a lenghty inspection of Letterman's personal history and the Letterman/Birkitt/Halderman events. In October 2009, Letterman announced on his show that he had had sex with women who worked for him, and that this had caused an alleged extortion attempt. It came out the next day that the $2 million "request" was from CBS's "48 Hours" Producer/Reporter Robert "Joe" Halderman - and that the two men both had had - or, were having - relationships with the same Stephanie Birkitt. Birkitt had worked with both, but is best known for her on-air comedy segments with Letterman.

However, besides adding some depth to the many facets of this story, it comes up with little in the way of news. Although the author leads with his interview of Late Show With David Letterman Executive Producer Rob Burnett, his e-mail interview of "vaguely"-fiancee Merrill Markoe - Letterman's "head writer" for many years - provides the most interesting new information.

After Letterman went public with his "apology" and the alleged blackmail, Markoe released a comment on her website. http://merrillmarkoe.com/okay-here-it-is-my-big-comment-on-mr-letterman10 The short statement - just one sentence long - said, "As you can imagine this is a very emotional moment for me because Dave promised me many times that I was the only woman he would ever cheat on."

In the Vanity Fair article, she got slightly more serious. First, she acknowledged that their relationship had lasted about 10 years (apparently, after Letterman's divorce in the late 1970's): “We were together for 10 years, though I know that it’s a vague definition of the word ‘together,’ since he was apparently with Regina for the last two of those years, and to my knowledge none of us were involved in a polygamous cult.”

The author asked Ms. Markoe how she had not learned of Letterman's burgeoning relationship with (current wife) Regina Lasko: “Dave has several homes. He has a television show in production and many meetings to attend, some of which require travel. Add to that the fact that he actually has numbers of clinically diagnosed crazy people stalking him, and you’ve got the makings of a package full of enough wool to make mittens, sweaters, scarves, and matching blindfolds for as many people as you have on your gift-giving list. To make things more convenient, during the last few years of our relationship I was spending time in L.A., trying to start projects of my own, and was naïve enough not to be especially paranoid, because not only did he and I continue to work together but I, like Tiger Woods’s wife, was under the impression that my flawless Scandinavian supermodel good looks were enough to keep a man at home.”

In a coincidence, Vanity Fair's April issue featuring the article about David Letterman, Robert "Joe" Halderman and Stephanie Birkitt hit the newsstands on March 9, the same day that Halderman agreed to plead guilty to the extortion and accept a 6-month jail sentence.

For more complete coverage - including video and a copy of the short statement read in court, please go to the David Letterman page.

Maybe the shock value was apparent to the "former Letterman insider" who said it, and that is why he or she demanded anonymity. Regardless, comparing David Letterman to former President Bill Clinton is not surprising; comparing him to Jesus Christ is.

From the Vanity Fair article:

“It’s like a cult,” says a former insider. “You arrive as an intern and stay for life, and people do fall in love with Dave and behave in a way that might not be considered appropriate in a professional working environment. People really feed on wanting positive reinforcement from him. It was intoxicating to me, and I can see how someone could cross the line. It’s like Jesus Christ saying, ‘Hey, let’s go to dinner!’ You’re going to go, ‘Wow! He chose me!’ If he’d hit on me, I probably would have accepted.”