Brian Williams Pulls Plug on ‘Late Show With David Letterman’ Appearance

The NBC News anchor is on hiatus after helicopter scandal and backs out of late-night guest spot

Brian Williams raps Snoop Dogg on 'The Tonight Show'
NBC

Brian Williams on Sunday backed out of his scheduled Thursday appearance on CBS’s “Late Show with David Letterman” in the wake of his “chopper whopper.”

The “NBC Nightly News” anchor’s exit from his guest spot on the late-night show was confirmed by an individual with knowledge of the situation to TheWrap. Williams is at the center of a growing scandal over his inaccurate recounting of an Iraq War mission, and said on Saturday that he would take a hiatus from the evening news “for the next several days.”

Williams last week admitted that he was never aboard a helicopter that was struck by rocket-propelled grenade fire and forced down in Iraq in 2003, as he had previously claimed several times, but was actually in one behind it.

Williams apologized Wednesday on-air for the “mistake.”

“I made a mistake in recalling the events of 12 years ago,” he said. “It did not take long to hear from some brave men and women in the air crews who were also in that desert. I want to apologize, I said I was traveling in an aircraft that was hit by RPG fire. I was instead in a following aircraft.”

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