David Letterman: I Should Have Left Late Show '10 Years Ago'

If it seems like David Letterman hosted a talk show for a long, long time, he agrees. "I stayed on television way too long," he told Ellen DeGeneres on her show Thursday, USA Today reports. His Late Show ran from 1993 to 2015. "Nobody had the guts to fire me," Letterman said, "and I should have left like 10 years ago." When DeGeneres objected, he said: "You want to make sure you have some energy to direct toward other things. Now, you—nothing but energy—are doing other things while you're on television, so that's great. I did not." When he was absorbed in the Late Show, "All I cared about was myself." As DeGeneres pointed out, his new Netflix program, My Next Guest Needs No Introduction, takes less of his time. One thing Letterman, 71, has done with his new free time is volunteer with Habitat for Humanity. (Barack Obama helped Letterman kick off his Netflix show.)