A decade has passed since David Letterman signed off from his popular late-night show after 22 years and decided to walk away from Hollywood and plant roots in Indiana — a decision he does not regret.
Letterman, who became a late-night television icon while living in New York, left Indianapolis in his early 20s with dreams of making it as a stand-up comedian in Hollywood. While he achieved success, he admitted that the entertainment industry shaped him into a person he wasn't entirely comfortable with.
"In show business, I find that I have pretended to be someone I'm truly not," Letterman, 77, told GQ in a new interview. "In my life here in Indiana and at my home with my family, I am probably the person I actually am. And I regret that they don't kind of cross at any point."
Asked it he was glad to be out of show business because the industry was making him a "worse person," Letterman agreed.
"Yes. You're exactly right," he told GQ. "And I don't know, maybe it's only because I went through show business. I got that out of my system eventually that I can concentrate on being a better person and probably couldn't have reached this point if I had not gone through the exercise of trying to succeed at show business."
He added: "I just feel like personally, I have greater humanity than I did when I was in show business."
Letterman first hosted the "Late Night with David Letterman" on NBC in 1982. He departed the show in 2015 but returned as a guest in 2023 to what is now "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert." He has hosted his Netflix talk show since 2018, with Season 5 debuting in June.
In his interview, Letterman also spoke about the notion of retirement.
"Retirement is a myth. Retirement is nonsense. You won't retire. The human mechanism will not allow you to retire," he said. "But you know what I'm saying: As long as you are healthy, you still want to produce.
"And you will find ways to; once I stopped doing the show, it took me a couple of years to figure out that, 'Oh, this is a completely different rhythm.' And without the rhythm that you're accustomed to, largely unsatisfying. So you got to find something that's important to you."