Stephen Colbert Gets Ready to Hang It Up

NEW YORK — Each episode of “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” over the past few weeks has offered a fresh reminder that the final one is rapidly approaching.

Oprah Winfrey swung by to tell Colbert that she needed to “say goodbye.” Jake Tapper came armed with a farewell gift. Billy Crystal sang him a song. The audience ovations are getting louder and louder.

“The feelings of the show ending are growing significantly now,” Colbert said.

Colbert’s observation was part of wide-ranging interview last week in his office above the Ed Sullivan Theater on Broadway. Appearing both relaxed (he was barefoot) but also a bit restless (he occasionally fidgeted with an old-school football helmet), he reflected on the coming end of “The Late Show” on May 21, as well as his two-decade career as a late-night host. He also spoke about how his show had become so topical, President Donald Trump and what he might do next.

He could be, as he put it, “long-winded” at times. Indeed. For one question, he gave an answer that lasted, with limited interruption, for 18 minutes.

Of course, it was not Colbert’s decision to end “The Late Show.” CBS announced last summer that the network would cancel the show after this season, its 11th, for financial reasons; it was soon widely reported that “The Late Show” was losing tens of millions of dollars a year. Advertising revenue for all late-night shows has plummeted in recent years, and the number of shows has also fallen.

Still, many have been skeptical of CBS’ explanation. At the time, Paramount, CBS’ parent company, was closing a multibillion-dollar merger with the movie studio Skydance, a deal that required the Trump administration’s approval. Two weeks before the cancellation was announced, Paramount agreed to pay Trump $16 million to settle a lawsuit over an interview on CBS’ “60 Minutes,” a suit that many lawyers described as meritless. Colbert had been a sharp critic of Trump for over a decade.

Colbert said the cancellation had surprised him, though he has made light of it, too.

Here are excerpts from the interview, edited and condensed for length and clarity.

The Cancellation

One of the reasons Colbert found the cancellation surprising, he said, was that CBS encouraged him in 2023 to sign a long contract, as long as five years. He ultimately signed a three-year deal.

It’s Been Nine Months Since You Learned That You Were Canceled. CBS Obviously Claims That the Show Was Canceled for Financial Reasons. Others Are Skeptical.

I do not dispute their rationale. I do make jokes about it. But I also completely understand why people would say (A) that doesn’t make sense to me and (B) that seems fishy to me, because the network did it to themselves by bending the knee to the Trump administration over a $20 billion, settled for $16 million, completely frivolous lawsuit.

It’s possible that two things can be true. Broadcast can be in trouble. They cannot monetize because of things like YouTube, because of the competition of streaming. They’ve got the books, and I do not have any desire to debate them over what they say their business model is and how it does not work for them anymore. But less than two years before they called to say it’s over, they were very eager for me to be signed for a long time. So, something changed.

Becoming Topical

When Colbert took over “The Late Show” from David Letterman in 2015, his plan was not to have a ruthlessly topical or political show. “We were discouraged by the network from being topical,” he said.

It was my instinct to be less topical, because I didn’t want to have to engage with what I saw was an increasingly contentious public discourse. And I thought, aren’t there other ways to have fun with the audience?

But Colbert’s opening five months on the show were rocky, and soon he started doing topical jokes. By the 2016 national party conventions, Colbert went all-in on news and biting criticism of Trump, and critics were suddenly writing rave reviews. Higher ratings followed.

The Change Worked, Right?

I was like Clint Eastwood in “Unforgiven,” or is it some other movie? He buried his guns. And I’m like, you know, I buried those damn guns. I was talking to Paul Dinello — he’s one of my oldest friends and one of my producers here — and he’s like, “You’re having fun, and people love to see that.” And I said, “But that means I got to go dig up the guns.” And he says, “Buddy, that’s the part the audience wants to see.”

On the Trump Administration

Trump frequently criticizes Colbert and many other late-night hosts. On Monday, the president called for Jimmy Kimmel to be “immediately fired.” Brendan Carr, the chair of the Federal Communications Commission, has taken a keen interest in the sort of guests late-night hosts invite on their shows.

Why Do You Think the FCC and the Trump Administration Are so Focused on You?

Authoritarians don’t like anybody who doesn’t give them undue dignity. Comedians are anti-authoritarian by nature. And authoritarians are never going to like anybody to laugh at them. The number of newspeople who have said to me or Jon Stewart or any of the guys who do this, “God, I wish I could say what you say on air.” And we can. I think that upsets them. I think it might be upsetting that we really do not live in their world of principalities and powers.

What’s Next?

Here is what is known: Colbert, who will turn 62 before his show ends, is working on a script for Warner Bros. for a new “Lord of the Rings” movie. He also shared that he loves a live audience. He likes being a host and interviewing people. He loves podcasts and spends “more time with podcasts than any form of entertainment.” And he wants “to do comedy.” Beyond that, Mr. Colbert was uncertain about what’s coming next “because the show takes like 95% of my brain.”

So You Won’t Know Until You’re Done With the Show?

It takes all my time, so I don’t know. People have called to say, “Do you want to do X, Y or Z?” And I would say, like: “Hey, that’s great. I don’t think I could give you a good answer until I can really think about it.” It literally took me years to think enough about writing one script. And I put a lot of thought into it. And I feel good about what we’re doing, and I want to feel that good about everything I do. So when this is over and I have a little time to breathe, probably after turning in the first draft, too, of this thing, I’ll know then.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By John Koblin/Chad Batka
c. 2026 The New York Times Company

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