{"id":651413,"date":"2026-05-06T11:17:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T11:17:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/651413\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T11:17:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T11:17:17","slug":"david-letterman-slams-cbs-as-lying-weasels-for-canceling-the-late-show-with-stephen-colbert-due-to-a-financial-decision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/651413\/","title":{"rendered":"David Letterman Slams CBS as \u2018Lying Weasels\u2019 for Canceling \u2018The Late Show With Stephen Colbert\u2019 Due to a \u2018Financial Decision\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Late-night legend David Letterman is once again coming to the defense of Stephen Colbert, whose \u201cLate Show\u201d comes to a close later this month after CBS announced in July 2025 that the historic program was ending for good. While the network maintains the maneuver was a \u201cfinancial decision,\u201d Letterman told The New York Times<\/a> that he\u2019s not buying that rationale.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was dumped because the people selling the network to Skydance said, \u2018Oh no, there\u2019s not going to be any trouble with that guy. We\u2019re going to take care of the show. We\u2019re just going to throw that into the deal. When will the ink on the check dry?\u2019\u201d Letterman told NYT journalist Jason Zinoman. \u201cI\u2019m just going to go on record as saying: They\u2019re lying. Let me just add one other thing, Jason. They\u2019re lying weasels.\u201d<\/p>\n

More from Variety<\/p>\n

When CBS announced<\/a> Colbert would be pulled off the air, Paramount, CBS\u2019 parent company, was in the process of being acquired by David Ellison\u2019s Skydance. At the time, the deal was awaiting final approval from the FCC, and by proxy, President Donald Trump, a vocal hater of Colbert and the late-night genre. The timing of the cancellation led some, like Letterman, to speculate that Paramount and CBS cancelled \u201cThe Late Show\u201d to appease the Trump administration and ensure the Skydance merger would go through legal scrutiny.<\/p>\n

Letterman joined \u201cThe Late Show\u201d as host in 1993 and stepped aside for Colbert to take his place in 2015.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t the first time Letterman spoke out in support of his successor. Shortly after news broke of \u201cThe Late Show\u2019s\u201d cancellation, Letterman said in an interview posted to his YouTube channel that he thought the decision was \u201cpure cowardice.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThey did not do the correct thing,\u201d he added. \u201cThey did not handle Stephen Colbert \u2014 the face of that network \u2014 in the way he deserves to have been handled.\u201d<\/p>\n

Best of Variety<\/p>\n

Sign up for Variety’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Late-night legend David Letterman is once again coming to the defense of Stephen Colbert, whose \u201cLate Show\u201d comes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":651414,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[49,48,12997,75,241877,12998,862,18031,3668,18745,348],"class_list":["post-651413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-david-letterman","tag-entertainment","tag-financial-decision","tag-late-show","tag-president-donald-trump","tag-skydance","tag-stephen-colbert","tag-the-late-show","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=651413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651413\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/651414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=651413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=651413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=651413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}