(CNN) — For someone who seems to go to great lengths to keep his private life away from prying eyes, late-night talk show host David Letterman has seen a great deal of his personal life become public. Heart problems, a troubled stalker and a plot to kidnap his son have all landed Letterman in the news and provided fodder for jokes, including some of his own. The latest, an alleged extortion attempt involving his sexual dalliances (it’s been dubbed “sextortion” by pundits), was handled very much the way Letterman fans might expect: with humor and a bit of storytelling. ”He told it as a story that you felt like you were living along with him, and so I think he immediately won your sympathy by telling it that way,” said Hal Boedeker, TV critic for the Orlando Sentinel. “He also took the seedy factor out of it with restraint by not saying too much and trying to protect the people he was involved with.” Letterman revealed on his show Thursday night that he’d had sexual relations with members of his staff and that he had testified about those liaisons before a New York grand jury for a case involving the alleged attempted extortion. A CBS producer, Robert “Joe” Halderman, has been charged with first-degree attempted grand larceny; officials said he threatened to go public with the 62-year-old funnyman’s dalliances unless Letterman paid $2 million.