{"id":659693,"date":"2026-05-09T11:28:28","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T11:28:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/659693\/"},"modified":"2026-05-09T11:28:28","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T11:28:28","slug":"stephen-colbert-names-1-guest-hes-still-desperate-to-get-on-his-show-before-it-ends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/659693\/","title":{"rendered":"Stephen Colbert Names 1 Guest He\u2019s Still Desperate To Get On His Show Before It Ends"},"content":{"rendered":"

You could say that Stephen Colbert<\/a> is thirsty \u2026 for the purveyor of some very fine wine.<\/p>\n

The host of \u201cThe Late Show\u201d told the Hollywood Reporter<\/a> in an interview published Wednesday that there is still one dream guest he\u2019s \u201cdesperate\u201d to get on his show before its final episode<\/a> on Thursday, May 21.<\/p>\n

\"StephenStephen Colbert on \u201cThe Late Show\u201d in July 2024.<\/p>\n

CBS Photo Archive via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cThe pope is my white whale,\u201d Colbert, a devout Catholic, said of Pope Leo XIV<\/a>. \u201cI wrote him. I said, \u2018Come on!\u2019 No, I said, \u2018Your Holiness, I hope this letter finds you well or, at the very least, infallible. Would you please come on my show? We don\u2019t have to talk about politics.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Bless his heart, because if the first U.S. pontiff did actually appear as a guest on \u201cThe Late Show,\u201d it would certainly be perceived as political, even if they avoided the subject altogether. This is mostly because President Donald Trump has a longstanding beef with the pope<\/a> and Colbert<\/a>, who have both criticized his politics, with the latter being much more blunt<\/a> about it than the former<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"PopePope Leo XIV (C) \u2014 who hails from Chicago, Illinois \u2014 wears a Chicago White Sox baseball team cap as he meets newly wedded couples during the weekly general audience in St Peter’s Square at the Vatican on June 11, 2025. <\/p>\n

FILIPPO MONTEFORTE via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t really think he\u2019d want to talk about politics or anything like that,\u201d Colbert told THR about the pope. \u201cLittle did I know that the guy could throw a punch [as he recently proved, feuding with Trump over the Iran war<\/a>]. I said, \u2018Let\u2019s talk about being an American Catholic.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n

Colbert did, however, have one jokey caveat:<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, if the pope goes on [Jimmy] Kimmel [instead], I\u2019m going to think hard about the Presbyterian church. That\u2019s all I\u2019m saying.\u201d<\/p>\n

Colbert was keen to poke some fun at his fellow late-night host during his interview with the entertainment magazine, especially since Kimmel has had a few close<\/a> calls<\/a> with having his show canceled, thanks also to his clashes with Trump. <\/p>\n

\"ColbertColbert and Jimmy Kimmel in 2017.<\/p>\n

Randy Holmes via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Although CBS has insisted that pulling the plug on its \u201cLate Show\u201d franchise<\/a> last summer was \u201cpurely a financial decision,\u201d most assume that Colbert got axed because the network needed to appease Trump to secure his administration\u2019s sign-off on a merger deal. It also doesn\u2019t help that just days before the cancellation announcement, Colbert ripped CBS\u2019s parent company, Paramount Global (now Paramount Skydance), on his show for settling a lawsuit with the president<\/a> over a \u201c60 Minutes\u201d episode with former Vice President Kamala Harris<\/a>.<\/p>\n

When THR noted to Colbert that the circumstances surrounding the cancellation<\/a> of his show allow him \u201cto go out as a kind of martyr\u201d and how Kimmel almost met the same fate, Colbert quipped: \u201cOh yeah. I was like, \u2018Hey, there\u2019s only room for one person on this cross, buddy!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You could say that Stephen Colbert is thirsty \u2026 for the purveyor of some very fine wine. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":659694,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[64,63,3871,134,4625,96232,3869,427],"class_list":["post-659693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cbs","tag-entertainment","tag-jimmy-kimmel","tag-pope-leo-xiv","tag-stephen-colbert","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=659693"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659693\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/659694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=659693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=659693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=659693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}