I was watching David Letterman the other night when he started telling this story about fishing with his son, Harry. They spotted what they thought might be a bald eagle. David went on to spend an incredible amount of time the following day trying to find out what kind of bird it was. Well, that’s when he started thinking that maybe he should think about retiring and start spending more time with his family.
Here is a clip of David’s announcement:
CBS (CBS, Fortune 500) subsequently released a transcript of his remarks.
“We don’t have the timetable for this precisely down,” Letterman said. “I think it will be at least a year or so, but sometime in the not too distant future, 2015 for the love of God, in fact, Paul and I will be wrapping things up and taking a hike,” he added, referring to his longtime band leader Paul Shaffer.
Next week, David celebrates his 67th birthday. He said that he has spent half of his life behind this desk. He and Paul did 4014 shows on CBS and 1810 shows on NBC. David also did 90 shows on The Morning Show. That is a total of 5914 shows in 33 years.
Shortly after “Late Show” host David Letterman announced his upcoming retirement, “The Tonight Show’s” Jimmy Fallon paid tribute Friday night with a Letterman staple: a Top 10 list.
Watch Fallon’s “Top 10 Reasons Letterman is Retiring”!