Stephen Colbert Earned His 50th Emmy Nod. The Next Day, He Found Out ‘The Late Show’ Is Ending

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1964–present

Latest News: Stephen Colbert Announces The Late Show’s Cancellation

Longtime late-night fixture Stephen Colbert is headed off the air after a decade of hosting The Late Show. The comedian shared the sudden news with viewers during the July 17 episode of the CBS program. “Before we start the show, I want to let you know something that I found out just last night: Next year will be our last season,” Colbert said. “The network will be ending The Late Show in May.”

The 61-year-old clarified that CBS has no plans to replace him as host of the long-standing late night show. Instead, it will cease operations altogether. The timing of the cancellation aligns with the expiration of Colbert’s current three-year contract, which the host signed in June 2023.

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It’s been quite a week for Colbert and his show. On Monday night’s episode, the host skewered Paramount Global, which owns CBS, for recently agreeing to a $16 million settlement with President Donald Trump over his 60 Minutes lawsuit. Trump had argued the network unfairly edited an October 2024 interview with then–Vice President Kamala Harris, who lost to Trump in the November presidential election. Paramount isn’t apologizing for the segment per the terms of the agreement.

“As someone who has always been a proud employee of this network, I’m offended, and I don’t know if anything will repair my trust in this company,” Colbert said on-air. “But just taking a stab at it, I’d say $16 million would help.” The Late Show host called the settlement a “big fat bribe” against the backdrop of Paramount’s proposed merger plans with Skydance Media.

The media companies agreed to combine one year ago, but before it becomes official, the Trump administration must approve the deal. Paramount co-CEO George Cheeks told shareholders the company decided to settle Trump’s lawsuit in order to focus on its goals “rather than being mired in uncertainty and distraction.” Colbert joined many other CBS employees in criticizing the settlement.

Some—including the Writers Guild of America, which represents The Late Show’s writers—are speculating the network decided to cancel the talk show over concerns that Colbert’s comments would impact the merger. CBS has said the move is “purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night” and is “not related in any way to the show’s performance, content, or other matters happening at Paramount.”

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The Late Show is the highest-rated late night program in its time slot; it ranks above Jimmy Kimmel Live! and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. On Tuesday, Colbert’s program picked up two 2025 Emmy nominations for Outstanding Talk Series and Outstanding Directing for a Variety Series. The former nod marks the show’s ninth consecutive year in that category’s race and brings Colbert’s career nominations to 50.

Who Is Stephen Colbert?

Comedian Stephen Colbert has hosted The Late Show since 2015, a gig he took over from David Letterman. Colbert got his start in showbiz through Chicago’s Second City comedy troupe. After he met fellow comedians Amy Sedaris and Paul Dinello, they created and starred in the TV shows Exit 57 and Strangers with Candy. Colbert began appearing as a correspondent on The Daily Show in 1997, leading to the creation of his own show, The Colbert Report, in 2005 on Comedy Central. To date, he has won 10 Primetime Emmy Awards. After nearly a decade of hosting The Late Show, Colbert announced CBS plans to cancel the late night talk show in May 2026.

Quick Facts

FULL NAME: Stephen Tyrone ColbertBORN: May 13, 1964BIRTHPLACE: Washington, D.C.SPOUSE: Evelyn McGee-Colbert (1993–present)CHILDREN: Madeleine, Peter, and JohnASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Taurus

Early Years

Stephen Tyrone Colbert was born on May 13, 1964, in Washington, D.C., and grew up in Charleston, South Carolina, as the youngest of 11 children. In 1974, when he was 10, Colbert experienced what was likely the defining event of his childhood when his father and two of his brothers were killed in a plane crash. He grew introverted, finding solace in reading, especially science fiction and fantasy novels by authors such as J.R.R. Tolkien.

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Colbert found a way to express himself through acting, which he did in several school plays at Charleston’s Episcopal Porter-Gaud School. He later enrolled at Hampden-Sydney College of Virginia with the intention of becoming a philosophy major, but it wasn’t long before he reconsidered and transferred to Northwestern University, enrolling as a theater major.

Second City to The Daily Show

After graduating from Northwestern in 1986, Colbert moved to Chicago and took a job in the offices of the Second City comedy troupe. Two years later, after taking improv classes there, he was asked to join the traveling group. He accepted the offer and spent the next two years on the road.

At Second City, he met comedians Amy Sedaris and Paul Dinello, and together, they created and starred in two TV comedies: the sketch show Exit 57 (1995-1996) and the spoof of after-school specials Strangers with Candy (1999-2000). A movie based on Strangers with Candy came out in 2005.

In 1997, just before Strangers got picked up by Comedy Central, Colbert began appearing in episodes of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart as a conservative correspondent, in the guise of a humorless but hilarious persona he had perfected. With both Strangers and The Daily Show running—and the latter becoming a huge hit in the early 2000s—Colbert’s career was gaining traction.

The Colbert Report

Stephen Colbert interviews President Barack Obama for a segment on The Colbert Report. Getty Images

In the fall of 2005, The Colbert Report began airing on Comedy Central. As a starchy, blustery right-wing host, Colbert parodied pundits who dominated the talk show airwaves. The show was instantly one of Comedy Central’s highest-rated shows, bringing in over a million viewers per episode in its first week.

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Six months after The Colbert Report debuted, Colbert appeared as the featured speaker at the 2006 White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner. With President George W. Bush and first lady Laura Bush just a few feet away, Colbert proceeded to give an off-color tirade that left the audience silent and had the critics divided—some praised him and others said he had crossed the line into disrespect. The controversy only ignited his popularity, though. The Colbert Report became a Comedy Central powerhouse, winning several Emmys, including 2013 and 2014 awards for Outstanding Variety Series.

Offscreen, Colbert published I Am America (and So Can You!) in 2007 and contributed to 2004’s America (The Book): A Citizen’s Guide to Democracy Inaction. He and Jon Stewart also arranged the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear, a gathering in Washington, D.C., that served both to parody events staged by conservative commentator Glenn Beck and liberal activist Al Sharpton and to spark a serious dialogue about issues of the day.

On December 18, 2014, Colbert appeared in his final episode of The Colbert Report. His featured guest for the program was his friend “Grimmy,” also known as the grim reaper.

Hosting The Late Show

Stephen Colbert takes a selfie with the former host of The Late Show, David Letterman, in 2023. Getty Images

In April 2014, after David Letterman announced his plans to retire in 2015, Colbert was selected to replace him as host of The Late Show. “Simply being a guest on David Letterman’s show has been a highlight of my career,” Colbert said. “I never dreamed that I would follow in his footsteps, though everyone in late night follows Dave’s lead. I’m thrilled and grateful that CBS chose me. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go grind a gap in my front teeth.”

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The Late Show took some time to find its new voice after premiering with Colbert on September 8, 2015, but it eventually climbed to the top of the ratings thanks to the host’s deft handling of politically charged humor, particularly after President Donald Trump began dominating the news cycle. Colbert also became known for recurring segments like Big Questions with Even Bigger Stars, which had him gazing up at the sky with his guest and engaging in absurd philosophical hypotheticals.

Through The Late Show, Colbert also increased the visibility of Jon Batiste, the leader of the show’s house band Stay Human. Batiste—a five-time Grammy winner, including in 2022 for Album of the Year with We Are—served in the role for about seven years before departing the show in 2022 to work on individual projects. “Me and Stephen are friends for life,” he told The Guardian. “You don’t go through something like that and not bond with the person who you’ve been onstage with for seven years.”

After the COVID-19 outbreak shut down production on The Late Show in March 2020, Colbert made headlines by taping monologues from his porch, his bathtub, and other areas of his home.

In June 2023, with his contract set to expire at the end of the year, Colbert signed an extension with CBS to remain with the network through at least 2026. Financial details of the agreement weren’t made public, but Colbert’s annual salary was believed to be around $15 million under his previous deal.

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In November 2023, Colbert was forced to cancel a week of tapings after having surgery for a ruptured appendix. The 59-year-old comedian still managed to have a sense of humor regarding the health scare. “I’m grateful to my doctors for their care and to [my wife] Evie and the kids for putting up with me. Going forward, all emails to my appendix will be handled by my pancreas,” he wrote jokingly in an Instagram post.

Colbert is now in his final stretch as The Late Show host. He announced in July 2025 that CBS is ending the show entirely in May 2026.

Wife and Children

Evelyn McGee-Colbert and Stephen Colbert, seen here in September 2019, have been married since 1993. Getty Images

Colbert has been married to his wife, Evelyn, since 1993. They have three children: a daughter named Madeleine, born in 1995, as well as sons Peter, born in 1998, and John, born in 2002.

In 2018, the comic opened up to Rolling Stone about his battles with anxiety. He said he used to take medication, until realizing during his time with Second City that the symptoms went away while he was performing. “Creating something is what helped me from just spinning apart like an unweighted flywheel,” he told the publication. “And I haven’t stopped since. Even when I was a writer, I always had to be in front of a camera a little bit. I have to perform.”