06/01/2026
On May 21, 2026, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert broadcast its final episode, bringing down the curtain on one of the most celebrated chapters in American late-night television history.
Stephen Tyrone Colbert, born May 13, 1964, in Washington D.C. and raised in Charleston, South Carolina, had first risen to national prominence as a correspondent on Comedy Central's The Daily Show under mentor Jon Stewart in the late 1990s, before launching his beloved satirical program The Colbert Report, which ran from 2005 to 2014, and then stepping into the iconic Late Show chair in September 2015, succeeding David Letterman, who had launched the franchise in August 1993.
Throughout his ten-year tenure, Colbert welcomed an extraordinary range of guests to that storied Broadway stage, from sitting presidents and world leaders to the greatest names in music, film, and literature, building a program that balanced sharp political wit with genuine warmth and intellectual curiosity in a way that felt wholly unique in the landscape of American television. Under his leadership, The Late Show remained the top-rated late-night program for nine consecutive seasons.
CBS canceled the show in July 2025, calling it purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night. The announcement landed like a sh*ck. Colbert told his audience directly: ""It's not just the end of our show. It's the end of The Late Show on CBS. I'm not being replaced. This is all just going away.""
CBS called Colbert irreplaceable and retired The Late Show franchise entirely rather than find a successor, stating that he had taken CBS late night by storm with cutting-edge comedy, a must-watch monologue, and interviews with leaders across entertainment, politics, and news.
The final week of broadcasts brought a celebrated lineup to the Ed Sullivan Theater, including fellow late-night hosts Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers, John Oliver, and David Letterman himself returning to the stage he had made famous decades earlier.
Colbert had spoken often in his final months about what he would miss most. ""You can do comedy in a lot of different places,"" he said. ""There's no place like the Ed Sullivan Theater. But it's really the people. That's what I care about. That's really what I'm going to miss more than anything.""
In a final note of recognition, the show won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Talk Series after the cancellation was announced, Colbert's first Emmy while leading the program.
For ten years, five nights a week, Stephen Colbert showed up at the Ed Sullivan Theater and made something that mattered to millions of people. He did it with seriousness and silliness in equal measure, with a Catholic faith he wore openly, with a grief he had carried since losing his father and two brothers in a plane cr*sh when he was ten years old, and with a genuine love for his audience that never felt performed.
The Late Show franchise, which Letterman launched in August 1993, ran for 33 years on CBS before going dark for good.
The theater on Broadway will go on hosting other things.
But there will not be another Stephen Colbert behind that desk.
CBS said so themselves.
He was irreplaceable.
On May 21, 2026, he proved it one last time.
