While CBS cited shrinking audiences when it announced its cancellation of Stephen Colbert’s Late Show, the host’s final stretch of episodes offered the network one last awkward reminder of his appeal.
Despite Trump’s bitter Truth Social postmortem, where he declared that Colbert, 62, had “no talent” and “no ratings,” The Late Show‘s penultimate week made Colbert the most-watched late-night host on TV, according to Nielsen ratings via LateNighter.
The Late Show averaged 3.3 million viewers during its second-to-last week, more than Fox News talk show Gutfeld!, which had previously held the spot for all of 2026.
Even before Colbert topped the charts, the frenzy surrounding his departure embittered MAGA media, with Greg Gutfeld joking that the host was now his “Uber driver” and Newsmax’s Rob Finnerty declaring that Colbert’s show was “never about comedy” during a four-minute tirade.
Colbert’s final run of shows, which featured rebellious interviews with CBS predecessor David Letterman and former president Barack Obama, drew nearly as many viewers as Jimmy Kimmel Live!, The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon and Late Night with Seth Meyers combined.
Late-night hosts Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers, John Oliver, and Jimmy Fallon joined The Late Show on May 12 for CBS’s most-watched broadcast in three years, netting 4.1 million viewers—behind only the network’s post-Super Bowl special in 2024, according to LateNighter.
This week, for Colbert’s last episode on Thursday, Kimmel and Fallon aired reruns in support of Colbert.
During The Late Show‘s Thursday finale, the hosts returned to the show, where they stood beside a wormhole that eventually consumed the entire Late Show set.
“Without you, where will Americans turn to see a middle-aged white man make jokes about the news?” Meyers, 52, asked the departing late-night host.
“But why aren’t you guys being pulled in, too?” Colbert replied.
“Actually, one of these holes opened at my show last year, but it went away after about three days,” Kimmel said, referencing his own network fallout following his comments about MAGA’s reaction to the assassination of conservative podcaster Charlie Kirk, for which he was suspended from ABC for six days.
CBS announced the show’s cancellation after 11 years on the air last July, soon after the host called their $16.5 million settlement with Trump a “big, fat bribe.” The network cited “purely financial reasons,” but Colbert had his doubts.
“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,” he told the New York Times in April, “So, something changed.”
The Late Show‘s extended finale featured interviews with Jon Stewart, Bryan Cranston, Paul Rudd, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and music icon Paul McCartney, who first performed in the show’s Ed Sullivan Theater in 1964 with the Beatles.
During the finale, McCartney, 83, gifted Colbert a signed photo of his band’s legendary Ed Sullivan Show performance, which kicked off music’s “British Invasion.”
“Wow,” Colbert said before pretending to read the photo’s inscription. “To Stephen, you’re better than the Beatles, Paul McCartney.”
McCartney, who sang “Hello, Goodbye” with Colbert to conclude the finale, helped the host send off his show with a few parting jabs at Trump’s expense.
“We’d gotten used to a little bit of makeup in England,” McCartney recalled of The Beatles’ performance. “But we went down there, and the girls put makeup on us, and it was like bright orange.”
Colbert immediately chimed in with a comment about Trump’s makeup-covered bruised hand, “That’s very popular in certain circles these days.”
“We set a trend,” McCartney said.
“Now we know where it started!” Colbert joked. “Thanks a lot, Paul McCartney!”
