Late-night legend David Letterman didn’t hold back on his old network over its decision to oust his successor.
On Thursday, Letterman returned to The Late Show with Stephen Colbert to help send off his friend, whose last show airs May 21. While the pair threw CBS-owned furniture from the roof of the Ed Sullivan Theater, where the show is filmed, Letterman delivered a pointed message to the network.
“To the folks at CBS, in the words of the great Ed Murrow, good night and good luck, motherf---ers,” Letterman, 79, said to the camera, subverting the famous sign-off by CBS broadcasting icon Edward R. Murrow, as Colbert, 61, stood beside him smiling.
Letterman’s appearance marked his second return to the show since handing over The Late Show desk to Colbert in 2015 and followed previous comments he had made about Colbert’s ousting.
“I’m just going to go on record as saying: They’re lying. Let me just add one other thing. They’re lying weasels,” Letterman told The New York Times about CBS earlier this month.
The veteran host’s Thursday appearance was packed with more jabs at the network, continuing a habit he maintained during his 22-year tenure behind the desk.
During his sit-down interview with Colbert, Letterman joked about the network and said he had “every right to be p---ed off,” adding that “you can take a man’s show you can’t take a man’s voice.”
CBS announced that The Late Show would be canceled in July 2025, as its parent company, Paramount, was seeking approval for its merger with Skydance.
Although the cancellation was described as a “financial decision,” it came three days after Colbert criticized Paramount for paying what he called a “big fat bribe,“ referring to the $16 million settlement of a lawsuit brought by President Donald Trump against CBS, at a time when Paramount’s owners needed the Trump administration to approve their Skydance deal.
“Is this the last show, by the way?” Letterman asked Colbert, who clarified that it was the last show of the week and that the final episode would air on May 21.
Letterman then began inspecting the blue guest chair he was sitting in, saying, “All of this is fantastic, this is not hotel stuff,” before asking, “Who owns this stuff?” to which Colbert replied, “CBS owns everything.”
“This is nice, it would be a shame if something happened to this,” Letterman teased, before inviting staffers on stage to remove the guest chairs and Colbert’s host chair.
The furniture was later shown being taken to the roof of the building, where the current and former hosts threw the chairs toward a target bearing the CBS eye logo.
“We are all here for the wanton destruction of CBS property,” Letterman, who has hosted My Next Guest Needs No Introduction With David Letterman on Netflix since 2018, announced.
Colbert’s early destruction of his Late Show set comes after he revealed during an “emergency” revival of the Strike Force Five podcast, alongside fellow late-night hosts Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers, John Oliver, and Jimmy Fallon, that he and his staff will be “fired” immediately after his final episode next Thursday.
“We all have to be out by the next Friday,” Colbert explained on the podcast. “We got to get our s--t out of here,” he added.
The Daily Beast has reached out to CBS for comment.
