{"id":657615,"date":"2026-05-22T02:26:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T02:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/657615\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T02:26:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T02:26:10","slug":"stephen-colberts-final-late-show-guests-include-paul-mccartney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/657615\/","title":{"rendered":"Stephen Colbert\u2019s Final \u2018Late Show\u2019 Guests Include Paul McCartney"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tStephen Colbert<\/a> has taped his final episode of The Late Show<\/a> and was joined by a star-studded lineup of guests.<\/p>\n

\n\tPaul McCartney<\/a> was one of the star attractions for the finale, marking his latest return to the Ed Sullivan Theater, the site of The Beatles\u2019 historic live performance in 1964.<\/p>\n

\n\tMcCartney has been back since with a six-song set in 2009 for The Late Show with David Letterman above the Ed Sullivan Theater\u2019s marquee. He also appeared on Colbert\u2019s The Late Show in 2019 to promote his children\u2019s book Hey Granddude!.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe musician has had a busy week in New York given that he performed at the season finale of Saturday Night Live last weekend.<\/p>\n

\n\tJon Batiste, the former Late Show bandleader, is understood to have also performed.<\/p>\n

\n\tDeadline understands that there were a number of A-list cameos during the show, which is expected to run 17 minutes longer than its usual hour. These included Paul Rudd<\/a>, who has appeared on the show over a dozen times, Bryan Cranston and Ryan Reynolds, who is thought to have played tambourine during the show.<\/p>\n

\n\tExpect plenty more star-studded appearances as Colbert closes out the franchise, which began airing on CBS<\/a> in 1993.<\/p>\n

\n\tUnlike normal episodes of the late-night talker, security was tight outside the studio, which was under heavy secrecy. The stage door had a large black security tower against it with heavy curtains that security guards were drawing around each car as stars exited.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tThe scene outside the Ed Sullivan Theater after Stephen Colbert\u2019s final Late Show (Jill Goldsmith)<\/p>\n

\n\tThe presence of the oversized security tent, which shrouded the identities of anyone coming and going, frustrated onlookers, who sporadically booed. One fan shouted, \u201cWhoever you are, we love you!\u201d as the crowd reflexively broke into the signature \u201cSte-phen! Ste-phen!\u201d chant raised by the studio audience during the show\u2019s run.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe studio audience just left the theater in the last few moments with one audience member telling Deadline that they were \u201cmoved\u201d by the farewell.<\/p>\n

\n\tOne fan exiting said Colbert was \u201cvery intentional\u201d in coming out to speak to the audience before the show started taping and making the point that, on the last night, the team didn\u2019t want a spectacle, rather to do their best work, like they do every night.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI think that everyone that was on stage tonight really showed care to just give a great performance and focus on having joy \u2014 that was very much the theme they set out,\u201d the fan told Deadline.<\/p>\n

\n\tHe found the most emotional moment was an exchange between music director and bandleader Louis Cato and Colbert at the end of the show. \u201cLouis spoke for the crew, for the writers, for craft design, for everyone, and really shared what it meant to all of them to have Stephen Colbert as a leader,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\n\tColbert has had quite the lineup for his last week of shows; Bruce Springsteen performed Streets of Minneapolis last night, where guests included Billy Crystal, Weird Al Yankovic, Josh Brolin, Martha Stewart, Jeff Daniels, Aubrey Plaza, James Taylor, Robert De Niro and John Dickerson.<\/p>\n

\n\tEarlier in the week, Steven Spielberg turned up, as did Colbert\u2019s old friend Jon Stewart and former Late Show host David Letterman.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tFans gathered outside The Late Show with Stephen Colbert<\/a> finale (Jill Goldsmith)<\/p>\n

\n\tThe finale airs on CBS at 11:35pm. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stephen Colbert has taped his final episode of The Late Show and was joined by a star-studded lineup…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":657616,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[991,88,13501,85073,10674,16522,10675],"class_list":["post-657615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-cbs","tag-entertainment","tag-paul-mccartney","tag-paul-rudd","tag-stephen-colbert","tag-the-late-show","tag-the-late-show-with-stephen-colbert"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=657615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657615\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/657616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=657615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=657615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=657615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}