Stephen Colbert has opened up about the shock cancellation of The Late Show in a new interview, calling it: “The first number one show to ever get cancelled.”
In a GQ interview, the 61-year-old host and comedian said the decision came as a surprise to him and one that didn’t have any preamble.
Colbert said his “great relationship” with CBS was “one of the reasons why this was so surprising and so shocking”.
“Listen, every show’s got to end at some time,” he said. “And I’ve been on a bunch of shows that have ended sometimes by our lights and sometimes by the decision of other people. That’s just the nature of show business. You can’t worry about that. You got to be a big boy about that. But I think we’re the first number one show to ever get cancelled.”
In July, after Colbert criticised CBS’s parent company, Paramount, for making a $16m settlement with Donald Trump, he announced the show would be coming to an end in May 2026. The Late Show began in 1993.
In August, the CBS chief, George Cheeks, blamed it on “economics”, with the advertising marketplace “in significant secular decline” before adding: “At the end of the day, it just wasn’t sustainable to continue.”
Yet many believe it was a result of the network bowing to the president, who celebrated the news on social media, writing: “I absolutely love that Colbert got fired. His talent was even less than his ratings.”
The former Late Show host David Letterman called the decision one of “pure cowardice”, adding: “I think one day, if not today, the people at CBS who have manipulated and handled this are going to be embarrassed. This is gutless.”
“I can understand why people would have that reaction because CBS or the parent corporation – I’m not going to say who made that decision, because I don’t know; no one’s ever going to tell us – decided to cut a check for $16m to the president of the United States over a lawsuit that their own lawyers, Paramount’s own lawyers, said is completely without merit,” Colbert said. “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.”
Colbert also admitted feeling some relief that he will no longer need to “put on the snorkel and get into the sewer every day”.
The star has not confirmed what his next move will be but said he loved “creating things” and wanted to continue working.
