As his late-night show comes to an end this week, Stephen Colbert is opening up about the cancellation and suggesting it might have 'saved' his life.
After a decade on the air, CBS announced last July that it was ending the Emmy-winning Late Show With Stephen Colbert. The network cited budgetary constraints, with reports indicating the program was losing $40 million annually.
The decision followed Colbert's criticism of a settlement between U.S. President Donald Trump and Paramount Global, CBS's parent company, regarding a deceptively edited 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris. Colbert called the $16 million payout a 'big fat bribe.' Paramount was pursuing the acquisition of Skydance, a deal requiring Trump administration approval.
Trump mocked the 62-year-old comedian, who gained fame on The Daily Show before hosting The Colbert Report and later The Late Show. 'I absolutely love that Colbert got fired,' Trump wrote on Truth Social after Colbert announced the show's end to his audience at the Ed Sullivan Theatre.
Once his termination was official, Colbert continued to mercilessly mock the president almost nightly.
Colbert Recalls Learning of Cancellation
Colbert says he was resting on a couch with a sock over his eyes when his manager told him the show was ending. 'I sat up, and I said, 'I'm sorry, I'm awake. Could you say that one more time?'' he recalls in a new interview with PEOPLE.
After taking over from David Letterman in 2015, Colbert says his goal was to remain grateful every day. 'I tried never to take for granted filming in the Ed Sullivan Broadway Theater, having that tremendous audience, or having the ability to work with the funniest people I know every day and make jokes about the things that make me most anxious,' he tells the outlet.
Nine months after the cancellation was made official, he thinks CBS's decision might have 'saved my life.' 'It takes a lot of bone marrow to do the show every day, and now I'll be stepping down with enough time, enough energy to do other things that I want to do,' says the father of three.
Aside from writing a new Lord of the Rings movie with his son Peter, Colbert has no future gigs lined up. 'There's so much to think about to do the show. So I don't have much better of an answer than most college seniors do, which is I've got to finish this first, because it takes almost the entirety of my brain to do this show. So we'll land this plane and we'll check out the view from there,' he says.
Colbert Disputes Money-Losing Claims
In a separate interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Colbert disputed Paramount's claim that Late Night was a money loser but says he wasn't going to ask the company for proof. 'I'm not going to ask them to open books. I'm not here to talk anybody into me,' he says. 'I do not wish to litigate it. It's their shop, and they can do what they want.'
Colbert worries about the state of late-night television, acknowledging that 'there's no denying that the broadcast model is in huge trouble.' But he exits hoping he made people at home laugh every night. 'I want to be remembered as a comedy show. We harvest laughter for a living, and ultimately that's the thing I want more than anything else. I just want to make the audience laugh,' he tells THR.
Springsteen and Fellow Hosts Pay Tribute
On his penultimate show Wednesday night, Bruce Springsteen joined Colbert one last time and lashed out at the president from inside the Ed Sullivan Theater. 'I am here in support tonight for Stephen because you're the first guy in America who lost his show because we've got a president who can't take a joke,' Springsteen said. 'And because (Skydance's) Larry and David Ellison feel they need to kiss his ass to get what they want.'
Colbert was also joined by fellow late-night hosts Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers, and John Oliver, who paid tribute this month. Kimmel announced that his show would go dark on Thursday 'out of respect for our colleague and friend, Stephen Colbert.'
Trump previously called on CBS to end Colbert's show, writing on Truth Social last Christmas that Late Night should be 'put to sleep.' Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, the president said he'll weigh in on Colbert's departure at a later time. 'I'll have a message at a later date,' Trump told reporters on the tarmac at Joint Base Andrews.
The series finale of The Late Show airs tonight on CBS.
