On May 21st, 2026, after over 1,800 episodes and 11 years, “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” aired its final episode. The series finale was a humor-packed send off for Colbert and The Late Show crew, including cameos from Bryan Cranston, Paul Rudd, Ryan Reynolds, Pope Leo XIV’s arm, and Colbert’s fellow late night talk show hosts John Oliver, Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers, Jimmy Kimmel, and John Stewart.

The episode began with a goodbye message from Colbert to his audience, both live and at home, thanking them for watching the show and sticking with it for 11 years.

“On night one of “The Colbert Report” back in the day, I said, “Anyone can read the news to you, I promise to feel the news at you.”‘ Colbert reminisced in his farewell speech. “And I realized pretty soon in this job that our job over here was different. We were here to feel the news with you. And I don’t know about you, but I sure have felt it. And I just want to let all y’all know in here and out there how important you’ve been to what we have done. The energy that you’ve given us, we sincerely need that to have done the best possible show we could have for you for the last 11 years. You’ve given it to us, we’ve given it all right back to you.”

“The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” is owned by the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) and their parent company Paramount Global. The decision to cancel “The Late Show” was announced in July 2025, shortly after Colbert criticized a $16 million payout from Paramount to President Donald Trump. Trump had sued Paramount after what he claimed was “malicious, deceptive and substantial news distortion” during a 60 minute interview with Kamala Harris. Paramount eventually agreed to pay $16 million to the future Donald Trump Presidential Library, but quickly clarified to the public that “the settlement does not include a statement of apology or regret.”

Shortly after the settlement was announced, Colbert openly criticized it on “the Late Show”, calling it a “big fat bribe”. 48 hours later, CBS announced that “The Late Show” was being cancelled due to budget cuts. The company called it a “purely financial decision, made amid ongoing challenges in the late-night show business… It was not tied to Colbert’s ratings, creative direction or any recent comments or events involving Colbert or CBS News.”

However, the timing of the cancellation, so soon after Colbert’s criticization of CBS and Trump, has raised many questions online about whether CBS is being honest about their true reasons for cancelling “The Late Show”. Hashtags including #16MillionGone, #CBSQuiet, and #ExplainThis quickly went viral on social media platforms alongside clips of Colbert’s speech. CBS and Paramount were called out for their uncanny silence after the decision was announced.

“It’s possible that two things can be true,” Colbert said in an April 2026 interview with the New York Times. “Broadcast can be in trouble… 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.”

Shortly after CBS announced the cancellation of “The Late Show”, Trump took to Truth Social, a primarily conservative social media platform, to celebrate. “I absolutely love that Colbert got fired,” Trump posted on July 18, 2025. “His talent was even less than his ratings.”

In another post on July 22, 2025 Trump wrote “The word is, and it’s a strong word at that, Jimmy Kimmel is NEXT to go in the untalented Late Night Sweepstakes, and, shortly thereafter, Fallon will be gone. These are people with absolutely NO TALENT, who were paid Millions of Dollars for, in all cases, destroying what used to be GREAT Television. It’s really good to see them go, and I hope I played a major part in it!”

Colbert kept his response short and sweet, telling Trump to “go f*** yourself”.

10 months later, the inevitable end has come. On May 21st, 2026, “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” aired its series finale. The final episode had a mix of humorous and serious moments, including a number of celebrity cameos and a recurring joke of people attempting to present Colbert and his crew six bananas as a retirement gift.

Colbert also hosted legendary musician and former member of The Beatles Paul McCartney as his final guest, following a short sketch about the Pope backing out as a guest due to the wrong kind of hot dogs being left in his dressing room. McCartney and Colbert talked about the first time The Beatles had been to America as guests on the “Ed Sullivan Show”, as well as end of show rituals and McCartney’s upcoming album “The Boys of Dungeon Lane”.

The episode was intermittently interrupted by technical difficulties and strange sounds emanating from an unknown speaker. Colbert eventually took a break from interviewing McCartney to follow the investigate. Following the sounds, he discovered a wormhole backstage slowly sucking up the show. The wormhole was explained as having been caused by the metaphorical conflict between Colbert’s show having the highest rating of CBS’s shows, while also having been cancelled due to supposed budget cuts; a not-so-quiet nod to the questions still being raised about the true reasoning behind CBS’s cancelling of “The Late Show”.

The wormhole wasn’t the only jab at CBS made during the episode. At one point, Colbert began talking about a copyright case involving the song “Linus and Lucy” from ‘The Peanuts’ franchise. His band quickly began playing the tune, leading Colbert to slyly remark “”Oh no, I hope this doesn’t cost CBS any money.”

The episode ended with a performance of “Jump Up/Hello Goodbye” featuring Paul McCartney, Elvis Costello, Jon Batiste, Stephen Colbert, Louis Cato and The Great Big Joy Machine before Colbert’s family and crew swarmed the stage for one last big goodbye.

Stephen Colbert has yet to confirm his plans for life after “The Late Show”. Possibilities include spending more time with family and co-writing a new Lord of the Rings movie with his son.

“There’s so much to think about to do the show,” he explained. “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.”

However, while he seems to have made peace with the end of “The Late Show”, its cancellation raises a number of questions and concerns for other late night TV hosts.

In September 2025, “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” was temporarily suspended following Jimmy Kimmel’s comments regarding the fatal shooting of conservative activist and Trump supporter Charlie Kirk. While the show quickly returned to air, the question of who might be next hangs heavy over the heads of other political comedians. While CBS continues to claim budget cuts as the reasoning behind the cancellation of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert”, it’s hard not to wonder at the political aspect of it. Many talk show hosts use their platforms to criticize Donald Trump, his cabinet, and his policies, and based on Trump’s social media posts, he seems to have his sights set on all of late night TV, already having called out Kimmel and Fallon by name.

It’s impossible to tell what the future of late-night TV will hold. While some shows have become more cautious about their political messages, others have pulled out all the stops, no longer seeming to care about the possible backlash.

All episodes of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” are available for free with ads on YouTube and CBS.com.