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On his penultimate show Wednesday, Bruce Springsteen, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers and John Oliver joined Colbert
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Published May 21, 2026 • Last updated 4 hours ago • 4 minute read
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“The Late Show” frontman Stephen Colbert will host the final edition of the 33-year-old program on May 21, 2026, after it was cancelled by CBS as the network courted President Donald Trump. Photo by MICHAEL TRAN /AFP via Getty ImagesArticle content
As his late-night show comes to an end this week, Stephen Colbert is opening up on the cancellation and saying it might have “saved” his life.
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After a decade on the air, CBS announced last July that it was pulling the plug on the Emmy-winning Late Show With Stephen Colbert. The network said it was due to budgetary constraints, with reports claiming the program was losing $40 million a year.
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But the decision came after Colbert criticized a settlement between U.S. President Donald Trump and Paramount Global, the parent company of CBS, over a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris that was deceptively edited. Colbert called the $16-million payout a “big fat bribe.” Paramount was in the midst of trying to acquire Skydance — a deal that required the Trump administration’s approval.
Trump mocked the 62-year-old comedian — who gained fame by playing a fictitious version of himself on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart before getting his own spinoff, The Colbert Report— when he announced the news.
“I absolutely love that Colbert got fired,” Trump wrote on Truth Social after Colbert told his audience inside the Ed Sullivan Broadway theatre that Late Night was over.
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Once his termination was made official, Colbert continued to mercilessly mock the president on an almost nightly basis.
What Colbert says of the cancellation
Colbert says he was resting on a couch with a sock over his eyes when his manager told him his show was ending.
“I sat up, and I said, ‘I’m sorry, I’m awake. Could you say that one more time?’” Colbert recalls in a new interview with PEOPLE.
After taking over from David Letterman in 2015, Colbert says his aim was to be grateful everyday.
“I tried never to take for granted filming in the Ed Sullivan Broadway Theater, having that tremendous audience, or having the ability to work with the funniest people I know every day and make jokes about the things that make me most anxious,” he tells the outlet.
But nine months after his cancellation was made official, he thinks CBS’ decision might have “saved my life.”
“It takes a lot of bone marrow to do the show every day, and now I’ll be stepping down with enough time, enough energy to do other things that I want to do,” says the father of three.
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Aside from writing a new Lord of the Rings movie with his son, Peter, Colbert doesn’t have any future gigs lined up.
“There’s so much to think about to do the show. So I don’t have much better of an answer than most college seniors do, which is I’ve got to finish this first, because it takes almost the entirety of my brain to do this show. So we’ll land this plane and we’ll check out the view from there,” he says.
Comedian Stephen Colbert arrives for the 74th Emmy Awards at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles on Sept. 12, 2022. Photo by ROBYN BECK /AFP via Getty Images
In a separate interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Colbert disputed Paramount’s claim that Late Night was a money loser, but says he wasn’t going to ask the company for proof he wasn’t making them “the green stuff.”
“I’m not going to ask them to open books. I’m not here to talk anybody into me,” he says. “I do not wish to litigate it. It’s their shop, and they can do what they want.”
Colbert does worry about the state of late-night, saying that “there’s no denying that the broadcast model is in huge trouble.”
But he exits hoping he made the people at home laugh every night.
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“I want to be remembered as a comedy show. We harvest laughter for a living, and ultimately that’s the thing I want more than anything else. I just want to make the audience laugh,” he tells THR.
Bruce Springsteen says Trump ‘can’t take a joke’
On his penultimate show Wednesday night, Bruce Springsteen joined Colbert one final time and lashed out at the president from inside the Ed Sullivan Theater.
“I am here in support tonight for Stephen because you’re the first guy in America who lost his show because we’ve got a president who can’t take a joke,” Springsteen said. “And because (Skydance’s) Larry and David Ellison feel they need to kiss his ass to get what they want.”
Colbert was also joined by fellow late night hosts Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers and John Oliver, who paid tribute this month.
Kimmel announced that his show would go dark on Thursday “out of respect for our colleague and friend, Stephen Colbert.”
Trump called on CBS to end Colbert’s show earlier, writing on Truth Social last Christmas that Late Night should be “put to sleep.”
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, the president said he’ll weigh in on Colbert’s departure at a later time.
“I’ll have a message at a later date,” Trump told reporters on the tarmac at Joint Base Andrews.
The series finale of The Late Show airs tonight on CBS.
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