Letterman laughs off death threat
Posted August 23, 2011 1:16 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Even a death threat is comedic material for David Letterman.
The comedian, who returned from two weeks vacation on Monday, turned a serious situation into laughs during Monday’s monologue.
A threat against Letterman’s life was recently posted on a jihadist website, urging Muslims to cut out his tongue apparently because of a joke in reference to the death of an al-Qaeda leader.
“Tonight,” Letterman said, thanking the audience, “you people are more, to me, honestly, than an audience. You’re more like a human shield.”
The comedian then apologized for his late entrance.
“Backstage, I was talking to the guy from CBS,” he explained. “We were going through the CBS life insurance policy to see if I was covered for jihad.”
But Letterman went on to say he knew who was really behind the threats.
“And so now,” he continued, “State Department authorities are looking into this.”
But they could save themselves some trouble, he suggested: “Everybody knows it’s [Jay] Leno.”
The FBI said last week that it was looking into the threat.
With files from The Associated Press
