Broken hearted...

Maria Shriver has long sought to protect her privacy as California’s first lady, but on Tuesday she brought thousands to tears with an evocation of her grief two months after the death of her mother, Eunice Kennedy Shriver.

During a luncheon session at the Women’s Conference she is chairing in Long Beach, Shriver told attendees that she stood before them “with a broken heart.”

She said she has told people that she is holding up well, but “the real truth is that I’m not fine.”

“The real truth is that my mother’s death has brought me to my knees,” she said. “I had feared this my entire life. ... She was my hero, my role model, my very best friend. I spoke to her every single day of my life. I tried really hard when I grew up to make her proud of me.”

Her mother, she said, called her after every appearance on her TV shows —Shriver worked for NBC until her husband, ArnoldSchwarzenegger, became governor—or appearances she made elsewhere.

Eunice Kennedy Shriver died in August after a series of strokes.

Hostile ‘Late Night’...

A former writer for David Letterman said she quit his NBC talk show in part because of alleged sexual favoritism and a hostile work environment.

Nell Scovell, writing for Vanity Fair online Tuesday, said she had no intention of filing a lawsuit and wasn’t seeking revenge.

“I wanted to shine a light on gender inequality in that particular workplace,” Scovell said.

In the Vanity Fair article, Scovell said Letterman didn’t “hit on her” during her roughly five-month stint with NBC’s “Late Night with David Letterman” in 1990.

“Did he pay me enough extra attention that it was noted by another writer? Yes. Was I aware of rumors that Dave was having sexual relationships with female staffers? Yes,” Scovell wrote.

“Did that make me feel demeaned? Completely. Did I say anything at the time? Sadly, no,” wrote Scovell.

Off-balance...

Fox News Channel anchor Shepard Smith apologized for a “lack of balance” following a political report where the Republican candidate for New Jersey governor was interviewed and the Democratic incumbent wasn’t.

Fox correspondent Shannon Bream had wrapped up a live interview with GOP candidate Chris Christie on Smith’s afternoon news show Tuesday when the anchor asked, “When will you be interviewing Jon Corzine?”

Bream replied that despite “multiple requests,” Corzine hadn’t made himself available for an interview.

“I didn’t know that was about to happen,” Smith then said. “My apologies for the lack of balance there. If I had control, it wouldn’t have happened.”

Fox has been enmeshed in a battle with the Obama administration, which contends the network operates more like a wing of the Republican Party than a balanced news organization. Smith is among the network’s straightest shooters and he’s angered Fox viewers with some of his stories.