CBS is shutting down The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in May 2026 — just days after the host torched a $16 million legal settlement between Donald Trump and CBS’s parent company, Paramount Global.
“This is the end of The Late Show on CBS,” Colbert told his audience Wednesday night. “I’m not being replaced. This is all just going away.”
The audience groaned. Colbert, 61, responded: “Yeah, I share your feelings.”
The network insists the cancellation has nothing to do with Colbert’s on-air criticism of Trump or the company’s legal dealings. But the timing has raised serious questions.
On Monday, Colbert called Paramount’s settlement with Trump “a big fat bribe.” He said, “I don’t know if anything — anything — will repair my trust in this company. But, just taking a stab at it, I’d say $16 million would help.”
The lawsuit stemmed from a 60 Minutes interview with Vice President Kamala Harris that Trump claimed was edited unfairly. Paramount settled the case quietly, while trying to push through a sale to Skydance Media — a deal that still needs approval from a Trump-influenced regulatory environment.
In a statement, CBS and Paramount executives praised Colbert’s impact and called him “a staple of the nation’s zeitgeist,” but claimed the decision to end the show was “purely financial.”
“This is not related in any way to the show’s performance, content, or other matters happening at Paramount,” the statement read.
But many aren’t convinced.
Democratic Senator Adam Schiff posted, “If Paramount and CBS ended The Late Show for political reasons, the public deserves to know. And deserves better.” Senator Elizabeth Warren shared similar concerns.
ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel showed support on Instagram: “Love you Stephen.” He followed it with an expletive directed at CBS.
Actor Jamie Lee Curtis, who’s scheduled to appear on Colbert’s show soon, tied the move to broader political pressure. “They’re trying to silence people, but that won’t work. Won’t work. We will just get louder,” she said.
TV industry analyst and The Late Shift author Bill Carter was blunt: “If CBS thinks people are just going to swallow this, they’re really deluded.”
Still #1 — So Why Now?
Colbert has led the late-night ratings for years. According to Nielsen, he averaged 2.4 million viewers across 41 episodes this year. The Late Show just received its sixth Emmy nomination and won a Peabody Award in 2021.
He took over the desk from David Letterman in 2015 and brought a sharp political edge to the show, often zeroing in on Trump. His first-ever Late Show guest lineup included George Clooney and Jeb Bush, where he joked: “You would think that that much exposure to oranges and crazy people would have prepared him for Donald Trump. Evidently not.”
Over the years, Colbert became Trump’s most consistent late-night critic — never letting up. And even as CBS cut other late-night programming like After Midnight with Taylor Tomlinson, The Late Show stayed strong.
Which is why many see this cancellation as something more than just a business decision.
Colbert told his audience plainly: “Next year will be our last season.”
And for some, that final season is already looking like a warning shot — not just to Colbert, but to anyone willing to take on power from behind a late-night desk.
Watch the segment below:
