“Late Show” host Stephen Colbert on Tuesday revealed the date of his final episode: Thursday, May 21.
Colbert didn’t make the announcement on his own program, but instead went to a rival network with the news, LateNighter first reported.
“It feels real now,” Colbert told Seth Meyers, host of “Late Night” on NBC. “I’m not thrilled with it.”
Last summer, CBS announced that “The Late Show” would be canceled in May 2026, but did not reveal a specific date. The company insisted the move was “purely a financial decision,” but it came as parent corporation Paramount was attempting to complete a merger that required FCC approval.
With the merger in the air, Paramount agreed to pay Donald Trump $16 million to settle a lawsuit most legal observers believed to be without merit, and also canceled Colbert’s show, something the president had long demanded.
The merger was approved a short time later, causing many ― even some of Colbert’s rivals ― to doubt the company’s reasoning.
Jimmy Kimmel, for example, said he didn’t believe the company’s claim that “The Late Show” was losing $40 million a year.
“I know how finances of late-night television shows work, and it’s just ridiculous. It doesn’t make any sense at all,” Kimmel said on Ted Danson’s “Where Everybody Knows Your Name” podcast. “So, when you hear things that are obviously lies, you have to assume that there are more lies behind it.”
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