After over a decade of hosting, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert will air its final episode on Thursday, May 21, 2026, and Stephen Colbert is not going quietly into that good night.
In July, CBS announced that The Late Show would end in May 2026, and last month, it was decided that the network would retire The Late Show franchise as a whole, with the 11:35 p.m. time slot being replaced by Comics Unleashed with Byron Allen. While the network cited financial reasons for the decision, some critics called the cancellation politically motivated after Colbert called out Paramount for settling a lawsuit with President Donald Trump.
“Listen, every show’s got to end at some time. And I’ve been on a bunch of shows that have ended sometimes by our lights and sometimes by the decision of other people. And that’s just the nature of show business. You can’t worry about that. You got to be a big boy about that,” Colbert said back in November. “But I think we’re the first number one show to ever get canceled.”
In a recent New York Times article, Colbert addresses theories that if CBS was confident enough to commit to him prior to events involving Trump, then something must have changed beyond just the general decline of broadcast TV, so while they did cite that broadcast TV is struggling, and ad revenue is down, something else was amiss.
“It’s possible that two things can be true. Broadcast can be in trouble. They cannot monetize because of things like YouTube, because of the competition of streaming,” said Colbert. “They’ve got the books, and I do not have any desire to debate them over what they say their business model is and how it does not work for them anymore.”
But then Colbert pointed out: “But less than two years before they called to say it’s over, they were very eager for me to be signed for a long time. So something changed.”
Furthermore, Colbert addressed that Trump and his administration aren’t about party and that his issue is with Trump’s behavior and character, not his political affiliation.
“I don’t have any problem with Trump being a Republican. I have a problem with Trump being a complete narcissist who is only working for his own interest and does not appear to care if the entire world burns,” said Colbert.
“That’s not a partisan position,” continued the late-night host. “I have eyeballs and ears, and I think calling late-night ‘partisan’ is just roughing the ref. And we don’t even want to be refs, but they perceive us as refs. I reject the partisan description. Partisan means you’re never, ever going to make a joke about a Democrat, and that’s just not true. There’s just no comparison of how fertile the fields are.”
The Late Show, Weeknights, 11:35/10:35c, CBS
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