A former “Late Show” intern who recently sued David Letterman over unpaid wages issued a public apology Wednesday to the retiring king of late night — saying she was coerced by stupid lawyer tricks.

“I have nothing but respect for David Letterman and the whole organization,” a contrite Mallory Musallam told The Post. “I wore that internship as a badge of pride.”

The unemployed 26-year-old NYU graduate said attorneys from the firm Virginia & Ambinder — who have filed at least a dozen similar proposed class-action suits — pushed her into going after CBS and Letterman’s Worldwide Pants production company just four days after approaching her on LinkedIn.

While I am ultimately responsible for my actions as an adult, I was caught in a weak, vulnerable time, facing student debt.

 - Mallory Musallam, in her apology letter to Letterman

Lloyd Ambinder and his colleague Jack Newhouse, who was Musallam’s point person on the proposed class-action suit, were not available for comment. They also did not return messages.

In her apology letter to Letterman, a copy of which she showed The Post, the Oklahoma native explains, “While I am ultimately responsible for my actions as an adult, I was caught in a weak, vulnerable time, facing student debt.”

She said she was never contacted by anyone at CBS or Letterman’s shop and her decision to withdraw the proposed class-action lawsuit on Wednesday was solely her own choice.

The suit says there are 100 other interns in Musallam’s position who had worked 40-plus hours a week running errands, sending faxes and researching without receiving the minimum wage or overtime pay.

Musallam said the lawyers promised she would be joined by other interns and she didn’t realize that she would be the “lone ranger” named plaintiff in the court papers.

“The inveigling suit squad assured me that my intern work was little more than indentured servitude under newly established laws and that I was just one among other participants,” her apology letter reads.

“I feel like I was really duped,” said Musallam, who has also interned at W magazine and for “Entertainment Tonight.”

She called the lawyers — Ambinder and colleagues LaDonna Lusher and Newhouse and their co-counsel Jeffrey Brown — “a beguiling legion of lawsuit-hungry attorneys.”

Brown told The Post that even though he is lead co-counsel in the suit, he never even talked to the plaintiff, but still insisted she was not coerced.

But Musallam maintains that the attorneys barraged her with messages — through LinkedIn, email and by phone — just before the six-year statute of limitations was about to end on her 2008 stint, she said.

Ambinder’s firm has also sued Donna Karan and Warner Brothers on behalf of unpaid interns. Those cases are still pending.

Musallam is pleading for Letterman’s forgiveness, though his spokesman told The Post he is “respectfully declining to comment.”

In her letter, Musallam says, “I’ve had a job since I was 15 and I have always been a hard worker. I was by no means looking for a trap door out by exploiting your established organization and I cannot apologize enough for this debacle.”

When the suit was filed in Manhattan Supreme Court on Sept. 4, a CBS spokesman said, “This lawsuit is part of a nationwide trend of class-action lawyers attacking internship opportunities provided by companies in the media and entertainment industry.”