David Letterman recently apologized to former Late Night With David Letterman writer Nell Scovell for the way he treated her and the other women working on his show. In a 2009 Vanity Fair piece, "Letterman and Me," Scovell detailed the sexist, hostile work environment she said she had to endure during her time at the show. In the years since her famous article, the Me Too movement has led to a fast-changing environment in Hollywood. Yet ten years ago, when accusations of sexism in Hollywood were either ignored or denied, Scovell spoke out and named names, a rare move for a writer in her position.
Scovell was the second woman to ever write for the late-night show. She had already established herself as a successful writer, having created the original Sabrina the Teenage Witch television series, among other credits. In her piece, Scovell wrote about the hostile work environment she faced working for Late Night With David Letterman. Back in 2009, Letterman made a public apology on the air when he admitted to having an affair with one of the other female staffers on the show. Scovell noted that the former late-night show host only apologized for his behavior when he was caught.
Letterman didn't read Scovell's original piece when it was published in 2009. While the Vanity Fair piece went into detail about her experience working for Letterman's show, Scovell reiterated that her intention in publishing the article was not to punish Letterman. Rather, Scovell hoped that telling her story would inspire a positive chain reaction that would lead to more women writers getting hired for late-night television and other writers' rooms. In a follow-up piece published this month in Vanity Fair, Scovell described how she tasked Letterman with reading her original 2009 piece when they agreed to meet up this year. When they reunited, the former late-night show host finally apologized to Scovell for his behavior. According to Scovell, he explained to her that he was focused on repairing his relationship with his wife when the original story was published.
"You know, the other night I read the piece that you wrote 10 years ago,” Dave told me on a rainy day earlier this month.
It took you long enough,” I said.
And I [David] thought, Holy shit, this is so disturbing and, sadly, a perspective that I did not have because the only perspective I had was in here.” Dave gestured to himself. “I’m sorry I was that way and I was happy to have read the piece because it wasn’t angering. I felt horrible because who wants to be the guy that makes people unhappy to work where they’re working? I don’t want to be that guy. I’m not that guy now. I was that guy then.”
It’s not often that you speak truth to power and power responds, “Oops, sorry.”
After her recent meeting with Letterman, Scovell wrote that he reached out to two other female staffers on his show that had been denied promotions to writing staff and also apologized to them. Scovell said that she was never contacted by the HR department for the show to investigate the claims she made. While Letterman's career didn't suffer after the Scovell piece, the writer says that she quickly gained a reputation as a "prig" after the publication of her original 2009 piece. Once, a male coworker in a different writers' room asked Scovell if she planned to write about him after he made a sexist comment. A decade before the Me Too movement, women were often shamed for speaking out about sexism. Today, sexism in the workplace is no longer something to joke about.
Looking forward, Scovell writes that the current "Me Too" movement is a two-way street that requires dialogue between men and women. Even though she's still angry at her former boss, she believes that in some cases, conversation can be productive. And thanks in part to her groundbreaking 2009 Vanity Fair piece, the conversation about sexism in Hollywood is no longer being ignored.
Source: Vanity Fair
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