{"id":223824,"date":"2026-01-02T17:54:04","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T17:54:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/223824\/"},"modified":"2026-01-02T17:54:04","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T17:54:04","slug":"stephen-colbert-says-dont-trust-billionaires","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/223824\/","title":{"rendered":"Stephen Colbert Says ‘Don’t Trust Billionaires’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tStephen Colbert<\/a> capped off his 2025 with a video appearance on CNN\u2019s \u201cNew Year\u2019s Eve Live\u201d with Andy Cohen and Anderson Cooper, where the former asked the late-night host to tell viewers about the \u201cmajor lesson\u201d he learned during the year. Colbert\u2019s 2025 was defined by CBS canceling \u201cThe Late Show<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cSo much has happened in the last year of your life,\u201d Cohen said during the telecast in a nod to Colbert\u2019s cancellation. \u201cI am curious what you left last year having learned\u2026 what is the major lesson you learned? It\u2019s not a controversial question.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cDon\u2019t trust billionaires,\u201d Colbert said and then immediately started laughing. \u201cThey don\u2019t get rich by finding that money on the side of the road, brother!\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tColbert announced in July CBS\u2019 decision to pull \u201cThe Late Show\u201d off the air. Network executives said the decision was \u201cpurely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night,\u201d but many in the industry figured the decision had more to do with David Ellison\u2019s Paramount takeover. The news hit right as Ellison\u2019s Skydance was acquiring CBS\u2019 parent company Paramount Global. Ellison has been aligning the company<\/a> more with Donald Trump<\/a>, who Colbert often bashes on \u201cThe Late Show.\u201d In fact, Colbert targeted both CBS and Trump a few days before news of his show\u2019s cancellation when he called out Paramount for paying $16 million to Trump\u2019s estate to settle a lawsuit with Trump over a \u201c60 Minutes\u201d interview with Kamala Harris. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAs someone who has always been a proud employee of this network, I\u2019m offended, and I don\u2019t know if anything will ever repair my trust in this company,\u201d Colbert said on the show at the time.<\/p>\n

\n\tDavid Letterman, who created \u201cThe Late Show\u201d and hosted the program from 1993 to 2015, was one of many public figures who reasoned Colbert was being canceled due to political reasons involving Ellison taking over Paramount. He called CBS\u2019 decision \u201cpure cowardice\u201d <\/a>and said Ellison doesn\u2019t \u201cwant any trouble along the lines of freedom of the press or free speech or freedom of expression. They don\u2019t want the government going after them, because that concept of freedom of the press and freedom of speech \u2014 that\u2019s so old-fashioned.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a GQ cover story<\/a> published in November, Colbert was asked about his\u00a0CBS<\/a>\u00a0show\u2019s sudden axing shortly after he criticized Paramount<\/a>\u2018s $16 million \u201c60 Minutes\u201d settlement with Trump and amid Paramount\u2019s wait for FCC approval for its merger with Skydance. Colbert said it wasn\u2019t unreasonable to think he was canceled for political reasons.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMy reaction as a professional in show business is to go: That is the network\u2019s decision,\u201d Colbert said. \u201cI can understand why people would have that reaction because CBS or the parent corporation \u2014 I\u2019m not going to say who made that decision, because I don\u2019t know; no one\u2019s ever going to tell us \u2014 decided to cut a check for $16 million to the president of the United States over a lawsuit that their own lawyers, Paramount\u2019s own lawyers, said is completely without merit. And it is self-evident that that is damaging to the reputation of the network, the corporation, and the news division. So it is unclear to me why anyone would do that other than to curry favor with a single individual.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tColbert added: \u201cIf people have theories that associate me with that, it\u2019s a reasonable thing to think, because CBS or the corporation clearly did it once. But my side of the street is clean and I have no interest in picking up a broom or adding to refuse on the other side of the street. Not my problem. So people can have their theories. I have my feelings about not doing the show anymore, but you\u2019d have to show me why that\u2019s a fruitful relationship for me to have with my network for the next nine months, for me to engage in that speculation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe Late Show\u201d will sign off the air in May.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stephen Colbert capped off his 2025 with a video appearance on CNN\u2019s \u201cNew Year\u2019s Eve Live\u201d with Andy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":223825,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[969,93,61,60,1138,13479,282],"class_list":{"0":"post-223824","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-donald-trump","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-stephen-colbert","13":"tag-the-late-show","14":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223824\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/223825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}