• Stephen Colbert hosted the final episode of The Late Show on May 21, ending CBS’s 33-year late-night franchise
• Paul McCartney was the surprise final guest, closing the show by literally turning off the lights at the Ed Sullivan Theater
• Jon Stewart, Strike Force Five, Bryan Cranston, Paul Rudd, Ryan Reynolds and others made cameo appearances throughout the night
• CBS canceled the top-rated late-night show amid its parent company Paramount’s pending acquisition by a Trump donor’s son
• Colbert’s next move is writing a screenplay for a Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings film

“We call this show The Joy Machine,” Stephen Colbert said in the opening seconds of his final episode. “Because to do this many shows, it has to be a machine. But the thing is, if you choose to do it with joy, it doesn’t hurt as much when your fingers get caught in the gears.”

On Thursday night, after 11 years and roughly 1,800 episodes, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert aired for the last time. CBS’s decision to cancel the top-rated show in its time slot — a move widely linked to the network’s parent company Paramount navigating a politically charged acquisition — left Colbert, his staff, and millions of viewers with nearly 10 months to brace for an ending nobody really felt ready for. And yet, when the night came, Colbert put on exactly the kind of show he always put on. That was, entirely and deliberately, the point.

A Regular Show, With a Few Interruptions

Colbert opened by insisting he wanted to do a regular episode — not something big and ceremonial — because every episode of The Late Show had always been special to him. The universe, and a parade of famous friends, had other ideas.

Bryan Cranston was the first celebrity in the audience to volunteer himself as Colbert’s final guest, and the first to be politely turned down. Paul Rudd arrived next, bearing five bananas as what he called a “customary” retirement gift — a gag that got a callback when Ryan Reynolds presented the same offering to bandleader Corey Bernhard. Tim Meadows invoked his decades-long friendship with Colbert in hopes of landing the coveted guest chair, while Tig Notaro seemed genuinely unaware there was even a reason to want it. “It’s your last show?” she deadpanned.

In between interruptions, Colbert played it completely straight. He rattled off jokes about the day’s headlines, delivered one last “First Draft” segment, and dropped a piece of Ed Sullivan Theater trivia that landed perfectly: “Backstage, Elvis used the bathroom and didn’t die.” He ran a “Meanwhile” segment that was, characteristically, both verbose and unhinged — a ship-themed declaration of love for his staff and crew that somehow also included a Peanuts copyright lawsuit. When the band noodled a melody that sounded suspiciously like Vince Guaraldi’s iconic theme, Colbert looked at the camera and said, “Oh no! I hope this doesn’t cost CBS any money!” It was a genuinely funny troll of his soon-to-be former employer, and one of the night’s most satisfying moments.

Paul McCartney, a Signed Photo, and the Beginning of the End

The final guest had been teased as a major surprise, though The Late Show‘s own social team somewhat undermined the reveal by announcing it before the broadcast began. Still, Paul McCartney sitting down at the Ed Sullivan Theater — the same stage where the Beatles made American history in 1964 — carried genuine weight.

McCartney brought a gift: a signed photograph of that legendary Beatles performance. The inscription, Colbert jokingly claimed, read “Colbert is better than The Beatles.” Before they got into conversation, McCartney reflected on what America meant to him when he first arrived. “The land of the free, the greatest democracy, that is what it was,” he said. “And still is, hopefully.” On the subject of his iPhone: “I hate cookies. I bought you. I don’t want you to change.” Even when Colbert asked about McCartney’s earliest memories of music — questions the man has surely fielded a thousand times — there was something genuinely warm about the exchange. Colbert’s interviews were always like this: personal, unhurried, and entirely his own.

McCartney would stay until the very last moment of the night.

The Wormhole, Jon Stewart, and Strike Force Five

Throughout the episode, a strange green glow and an intermittent hum had been appearing behind Colbert’s desk. Eventually, he couldn’t ignore it anymore. He threw to commercial, walked backstage, and discovered an inter-dimensional wormhole — brought on, as Neil deGrasse Tyson explained before being immediately swallowed by it, by two contradictory realities existing simultaneously: The Late Show is the No. 1 rated show in late night, and The Late Show is also canceled.

Jon Stewart appeared next, “on behalf of Paramount,” to push his friend toward the future. “The hole’s here, you can’t ignore it,” Stewart told him. “The only choice you have now is how you choose to walk through it.” Then came Strike Force Five — Seth Meyers, John Oliver, Jimmy Kimmel, and Jimmy Fallon — with their own words of encouragement, before the wormhole broke containment and started pulling in the audience.

It was peak Late Show: big, silly, and sneakily sincere all at once.

Hello, Goodbye

When Colbert returned from a real commercial break, he was in an empty void — a single light bulb, a chair, and the quiet. Then Elvis Costello began singing “Jump Up,” joined by former Late Show bandleader Jon Batiste and current leader Louis Cato. It felt, for a moment, like the show might end there — without its signature live musical closing number.

Then the lights came back on. McCartney, Costello, Cato, Batiste, and Colbert stood in front of the live studio audience and sang “Hello, Goodbye” — which also happened to be the episode’s title. Colbert’s family, guests, and crew flooded the stage in a moment reminiscent of the Colbert Report finale. Before they could finish, the pre-taped sketch resumed: Colbert stood in the theater’s basement, the voices still singing above him, and let McCartney pull the lever to shut down the Joy Machine.

The wormhole swallowed the building whole. A snow globe appeared. Colbert’s dog Benny sniffed it, then was ushered along. And that was that.

What’s Actually Being Lost

The circumstances of the cancellation have hung over the show’s final weeks like a storm cloud. Paramount is in the process of being acquired by Skydance Media, led by David Ellison — son of Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison, a prominent Trump donor. The deal required federal regulatory approval. Colbert had been among the most consistent — if not always the sharpest — critics of the Trump administration on television. When the cancellation was announced, Trump rushed to Truth Social to gloat: “I absolutely love that Colbert got fired.” Paramount maintained the decision was purely financial. On the show’s penultimate episode, Bruce Springsteen called Colbert “the first guy in America who lost his show because we got a president who can’t take a joke,” and named Ellison and his father from the stage.

Colbert, for his part, largely let others carry that fight. He didn’t go out guns blazing. He didn’t spend his finale burning down the house. He did what he always did: he put on a good show.

That choice — to resist the pull of the dramatic exit in favor of one more night that looked and felt like the previous 1,800 — is actually the most revealing thing about who Stephen Colbert is. His greatest asset was never his political sharpness, or his celebrity rapport, or even his comedy chops, impressive as all of those were. It was his sincerity. He was the host people went to when they wanted to talk about grief. Nick Cave opened up about losing two sons. Andrew Garfield wept over his mother’s death. Dua Lipa turned the tables and asked Colbert about his Catholic faith. He’d been open for years about the plane crash that killed his father and two brothers when he was 10 years old, and how he eventually came to “love the thing that I most wish had not happened.” His guests knew he would meet their pain with understanding, not a hunt for a revealing quote.

When the Los Angeles Times assembled a list of his most memorable moments, the first four fell under the heading “Emotional conversations about grief and faith.” Imagine trying to do that for almost any other host.

The day the show ended was also the last day of CBS News Radio, shuttered after nearly a century on the air. The Ed Sullivan Theater goes dark. A 33-year franchise is over. Colbert’s next chapter, at least, sounds like him: he’s writing a screenplay for a Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings film — a fitting escape, as one observer put it, for TV’s chief Tolkien nerd. He even closed his finale with a nod to Tennyson’s “Ulysses,” a poem he once convinced Helen Mirren to read to him on air.

“We love doing the show for you,” he said early in the evening. “But what we really, really love is doing the show with you.”

He meant it. He always meant it. That’s exactly what we’ll miss.

The post Stephen Colbert’s Late Show Finale: A Perfect Goodbye appeared first on Cream.

• John Oliver used the final seconds of Sunday’s Last Week Tonight to praise Stephen Colbert and take a shot at CBS.
• Oliver’s send-off — “He’s the f*cking best” — echoed David Letterman’s profane dig at CBS executives from the week before.
• Letterman had appeared on The Late Show to throw CBS furniture off the Ed Sullivan Theater roof alongside Colbert.
• The Late Show’s cancellation has been tied to Paramount’s merger with Skydance and Colbert’s criticism of the network.
• Colbert’s final episode airs Thursday, May 21, with no successor planned.

John Oliver doesn’t do sentimental very often. But with Stephen Colbert’s final Late Show just days away, he made an exception — and he made it count.

In the closing moments of Sunday’s Last Week Tonight, Oliver stepped away from the episode’s main segment on factoring companies and structured settlements to deliver a message to his audience. “We’re off next week — back on May 31 — please enjoy Colbert’s final shows,” he said. Then, with zero hesitation: “He’s the f*cking best.”

He signed off with: “Good night, and good luck, motherf*ckers.”

It landed like a perfectly thrown punch — and it wasn’t accidental. The line was a deliberate echo of what David Letterman had said on The Late Show just days earlier, when he appeared alongside Colbert and offered his own spin on legendary broadcaster Ed Murrow’s classic farewell. Letterman’s version, directed pointedly at “the folks at CBS,” was identical: “Good night and good luck, motherf*ckers.”

The phrase has become an unofficial rallying cry for everyone who thinks CBS’s decision to cancel Colbert’s show stinks — and there are a lot of them.

Letterman, a Rooftop, and a CBS Logo Getting Destroyed

Before Oliver’s tribute, Letterman had already delivered one of the more cathartic moments in late-night history. CBS had long prohibited Colbert from doing one of Letterman’s signature bits — tossing items off the roof of the Ed Sullivan Theater, the show’s home since 1993. So Colbert invited Letterman back to do it himself, and the two of them climbed to the roof to hurl lounge chairs, a desk chair, and a handful of watermelons down at a CBS logo mockup sitting on the street below.

“I enjoy destroying stuff. It’s great, great fun. Thank you for everything you’ve done for our country,” Letterman told Colbert after they’d finished.

Before they took to the roof, Letterman got emotional — and a little defiant — surveying the studio Colbert had transformed over the past decade. “I have every right to be pissed off, so I’ll be pissed off here a little bit,” he said. “Because this theater, you folks wouldn’t be in this theater if it weren’t for me, and Stephen wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for me. And we rebuilt this theater, and then Stephen came in, and look at this? It’s like the Bellagio.”

When Colbert confirmed that everything they were about to destroy belonged to “the Paramount CBS Corporation,” Letterman smiled: “Yeah, this is nice. It’d be a shame if something happened to this.”

https://youtube.com/watch?v=eBKWKu2Rqxc%3Ffeature%3Doembed

The Cancellation Nobody’s Forgotten

CBS announced last July that it was ending The Late Show, citing financial reasons — specifically that the show’s viewership wasn’t profitable enough to sustain. There will be no successor. The show simply ends Thursday, May 21, after more than three decades at the Ed Sullivan Theater.

But the circumstances of the cancellation have never sat right with a lot of people. The announcement came after Colbert publicly criticized Paramount’s $16 million settlement with President Donald Trump — a deal the company finalized while seeking federal approval for its merger with Skydance. The timing led to widespread speculation that Colbert’s outspoken anti-Trump commentary made him a liability the network couldn’t afford to keep around while the merger was in play. Letterman has been one of the most vocal in leaning into that theory.

Oliver’s own network, HBO, sits under Warner Bros. Discovery, which is itself moving toward a merger with Paramount — which gives his pointed CBS dig a slightly complicated corporate backdrop. But Oliver has never been one to let that kind of thing stop him.

Twenty-Plus Years of Friendship

The bond between Oliver and Colbert goes back more than two decades, to when both worked under Jon Stewart at The Daily Show. Since Colbert took over The Late Show in 2015, Oliver has shown up more than almost anyone else — 23 official appearances, according to Late Nighter, not counting cameos and ensemble bits. That’s not a casual professional relationship. That’s a friendship.

Which is why Sunday’s sign-off hit differently than a standard industry tribute. Oliver didn’t write a think piece or give a long speech. He just looked at the camera, said what he meant, and let it land.

“He’s the f*cking best.”

The finale airs Thursday. Don’t miss it.

The post John Oliver’s R-Rated Salute to Stephen Colbert appeared first on Cream.

• The Late Show with Stephen Colbert ends its 11-season run on CBS on Thursday, May 21, 2026
• Jon Stewart, Steven Spielberg, David Byrne, and Bruce Springsteen headline the final week
• The series finale guest lineup has not yet been announced — CBS is saving surprises
• Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel will air reruns on May 21 to clear the way for Colbert’s finale
• The show was canceled last year amid Paramount’s merger with Skydance in what CBS called “purely a financial decision”

Stephen Colbert is going out with a bang. With just one week left before The Late Show signs off for good on May 21, CBS has revealed the star-studded guest lineup that will close out 11 seasons of one of late night’s most celebrated runs — and it’s exactly the kind of send-off the moment deserves.

Jon Stewart, Steven Spielberg, David Byrne, and Bruce Springsteen are all confirmed for the final week. The series finale itself? Still under wraps — and CBS seems very intentional about keeping it that way.

Here’s how the week breaks down: Monday, May 18 kicks things off with “The Worst of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” — which the network is at pains to clarify is “not a clip show.” Tuesday, May 19 brings Jon Stewart back into Colbert’s orbit, alongside a sit-down with director Steven Spielberg (whose new film Disclosure Day hits theaters in June) and a special musical performance featuring David Byrne and Colbert performing together. Wednesday, May 20 flips the script entirely: Colbert will answer his own famous “Colbert Questionert” for the first time, with unnamed special guests doing the asking, and Bruce Springsteen closing out the night with a performance. Thursday, May 21 is the finale — and beyond confirming the date, CBS isn’t saying a word about who’ll be there.

A Farewell Tour Months in the Making

The final week is the culmination of a farewell run that’s felt more like a celebration than a goodbye. In recent weeks, Oprah Winfrey and former President Barack Obama both stopped by. Tom Hanks told Colbert he isn’t sure “how the entertainment industrial complex is going to survive without you.” Julia Louis-Dreyfus snapped back into character as Selina Meyer — with jokes written by former Veep writers — and delivered a roast-style farewell that was pure chaos in the best way.

David Letterman, who handed Colbert the keys to the Ed Sullivan Theater back in 2015, returned to gleefully hurl set furniture off the roof alongside his successor. And on May 11, Colbert reunited with Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers, and John Oliver — the group known collectively as Strike Force Five — for an extended on-air conversation. When Colbert asked near the end if there was anything else to cover, Kimmel didn’t miss a beat: “The outrage that your show is being thrown off the air?” He called it a “tragedy.” Fallon called it a “bummer because I wanted to do this longer with you.”

Both Fallon and Kimmel have since announced their own shows will go dark on May 21, airing reruns so that NBC and ABC clear the field entirely for Colbert’s finale.

Why the Show Is Ending

CBS canceled The Late Show last July, with Paramount describing the decision as “purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night.” But the timing raised eyebrows. The cancellation came amid Skydance’s acquisition of Paramount — a merger that closed roughly a month after the show’s end was confirmed — and after Colbert had publicly called CBS’s parent company settling a lawsuit with Donald Trump a “big fat bribe.”

CBS released a statement at the time calling Colbert “irreplaceable” and announcing it would retire The Late Show franchise entirely. “He and the broadcast will be remembered in the pantheon of greats that graced late night television,” the network said. Taking the 11:35 p.m. slot next season will be Comics Unleashed, hosted by Byron Allen, which currently airs at 12:35 a.m. following After Midnight with Taylor Tomlinson.

Colbert himself has been candid about the bittersweet circumstances. In an exit interview with The Hollywood Reporter, he said he “did not expect it to end this way” — but also acknowledged there’s a strange freedom in not being the one who pulled the plug. “If I’d decided to end the show, then I’m the bad guy — hard to make jokes about that,” he said. “Maybe they gave me a gift.”

What Comes Next for Colbert

As for what’s next, Colbert has said he’s not entirely sure — though it was announced in March that he’s writing a new Lord of the Rings film. And his life outside the Ed Sullivan Theater isn’t slowing down either. On the Strike Force Five podcast, he put the week in perspective: “My son graduates college on the 18th, my show ends on the 21st, my brother gets married on the 23rd. So I’m kind of sandwiched between things that are a little more important. A little perspective.”

He’s also been open about the hard reality for his staff. “No one’s got a job after that night,” he said. “I think the next day, everyone’s fired. We all have to be out by the next Friday. Like, physically absent from the theater.”

This is Colbert’s second time closing out a long-running show. When The Colbert Report ended in 2014, he orchestrated one of the most memorable late-night finales ever — a packed room of surprise celebrity guests, a rendition of “We’ll Meet Again,” and a final exit on Santa’s sleigh alongside Abraham Lincoln and Alex Trebek. That time, he already knew what was coming next. This time, he’s stepping into the unknown.

The series finale of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert airs Thursday, May 21 at 11:35 p.m. ET/PT on CBS, and streams on Paramount+.

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• Stephen Colbert’s Late Show with Stephen Colbert airs its final episode on May 21, ending an 11-season run on CBS
• On the Strike Force Five reunion podcast, Colbert revealed he was “wildly attracted” to Michelle Williams when she first appeared on the show
• Colbert said the thing he’ll miss most is the young staffers who grew up alongside him — one producer started at 21 and has worked with him for 21 years
• Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon are both going dark this week out of respect for Colbert’s farewell run
• Barack Obama, Tom Hanks, David Letterman and Pedro Pascal are among the guests filling Colbert’s final two weeks

Stephen Colbert is in full reflection mode. With The Late Show with Stephen Colbert just days away from its May 21 finale, the host sat down with his old Strike Force Five crew — Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers and John Oliver — for a reunion episode of their podcast, and the conversation got personal, funny and more than a little sentimental.

The quintet hadn’t been together like this since the writers’ strike brought them all to the same table, and this time the occasion was bittersweet: a send-off for the man who built one of late night’s most politically sharp and genuinely warm hours of television. Over the course of the conversation, Colbert opened up about what he’ll carry with him — and what he could barely handle while it was happening.

The Guest He Couldn’t Look At

Jimmy Kimmel, never one to let a moment of vulnerability go unexplored, asked Colbert whether he’d ever had a guest so attractive it became a genuine problem. Colbert had an answer ready.

“I’ll tell you who I did not expect to be wildly attracted to,” he told the group. “I did not know what to do with my eyeballs when Michelle Williams was on for the first time.”

Williams — the Dawson’s Creek alum who has since become one of the most acclaimed actresses of her generation — first appeared on the show in 2019 to promote the FX miniseries Fosse/Verdon. She returned earlier this year to discuss Dying for Sex, the Hulu limited series for which she won a Golden Globe. But it was that first visit that apparently left Colbert completely undone.

“She sat down across from me and I went, ‘F—k, what is wrong with my head? I’d better not look directly at her for this entire interview,'” he said. He added that he finds her “so beautiful” — not just in a conventional sense, but something about her “vibe” and “face” that he genuinely didn’t see coming.

Williams wasn’t alone on Colbert’s list. He also copped to a long-standing “Rachel Weisz problem.” “When Rachel Weisz would be on, I would leave the building for fear I would say something stupid,” he said. Rebecca Ferguson also made the cut. And then there was Andrew Garfield.

“Andrew Garfield, he is so attractive,” Colbert laughed, as Kimmel immediately pounced: “And you kissed him!” Colbert clarified — or tried to: “Or he kissed me. We did get our hands tangled in each other’s hair. It was really nice.” The smooch happened during a January 2017 episode, and it apparently left an impression on both of them.

The on-screen kiss theme wasn’t just a podcast talking point this week. On Tuesday night’s Late Show, Colbert shared kisses with both Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Pedro Pascal. Louis-Dreyfus, after hearing Colbert’s list of past on-camera kisses — which includes Sally Field, Helen Mirren, Allison Janney and Jeff Daniels — made clear she wanted in. Pascal needed even less convincing. He sat down on the couch and immediately pointed to his lips.

“I got jealous,” Pascal quipped. Colbert’s response? “No need! Anytime. These lips will soon be free.”

What He’ll Actually Miss

The laughs were easy. The harder part of the Strike Force Five conversation was Colbert getting honest about loss — specifically, the kind that doesn’t get talked about when a show ends.

“I think one of the things I’m going to miss most is young people who are good at their jobs,” he said. “And who you met, and they were first out of college or something like that. Like, I was talking to one of my producers the other day. He’s worked for me for 21 years, and he started working for me when he was 21.”

“Unbelievable,” Seth Meyers responded. And it is. Twenty-one years of someone’s life, shaped in part by the rhythm of a late-night show that’s now coming to an end.

Colbert has been candid since CBS made its announcement last year that the show’s cancellation blindsided him. “I have had a great relationship with CBS. It’s one of the reasons why this was so surprising and so shocking that there was no preamble to this,” he said at the time. The network called it “purely a financial decision” — the show was reportedly costing around $40 million a year in losses with a 200-person crew — but the timing raised eyebrows. The cancellation came just days after Colbert called his parent company Paramount’s $16 million settlement with President Donald Trump a “big fat bribe,” given that Paramount was simultaneously seeking federal approval for its merger with Skydance Media. CBS staffers told The Independent they viewed it as a continuation of what they called the “Trump shakedown.” CBS maintained it was about the bottom line.

A Farewell Two Weeks in the Making

Whatever the reason, the show is ending — and Colbert is doing it right. His final two weeks have been stacked with guests: Barack Obama, Tom Hanks, Hamilton star Christopher Jackson, and David Letterman, the man who held that desk before him. Obama’s return visit on May 13 featured the former president taking on Colbert’s rapid-fire “Questionert” segment, weeks after a May 5 episode filmed at the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago that generated headlines of its own.

During that earlier visit, Colbert joked that people had been telling him to run for president after the show ends. Obama laughed, said Colbert had “the hair” for it, and offered a characteristically precise non-endorsement: “I think that you could perform significantly better than some folks that we’ve seen.” The White House responded with a statement calling Obama “a classless moron” — which, in the current climate, probably felt like a badge of honor to everyone in the Ed Sullivan Theater.

After the Late Show, Colbert’s next chapter is already set. In March, Peter Jackson announced that Colbert — a lifelong Tolkien devotee — will write a new Lord of the Rings film, currently titled The Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past. For a man who once spent 20 minutes grilling Ian McKellen about Middle-earth lore on live television, it’s a genuinely perfect next act.

His fellow late-night hosts are marking the moment in their own way. Jimmy Kimmel announced that Jimmy Kimmel Live! is going dark all week — airing reruns “out of deference” to Colbert’s sendoff, as he told LateNighter. Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers are doing the same, running repeats while both appeared on The Late Show Monday. Kimmel also confirmed his ABC show will not produce a new episode on May 21, the night of the finale itself.

The Late Show franchise itself will go dark after May 21 — 33 years after it first launched. CBS has announced that Comics Unleashed with Byron Allen will take over the 11:35 p.m. slot. It’s a quiet end to something that was never quiet.

“These lips will soon be free,” Colbert told Pedro Pascal. But the rest of him — the wit, the warmth, the staff he watched grow up, the guests he could barely look at — that’s going to take longer to let go.

The post Colbert Opens Up About What He’ll Miss Most as Late Show Ends appeared first on Cream.

• Jimmy Kimmel texted fellow late-night hosts “Oh boy” after Melania Trump publicly called for ABC to fire him
• John Oliver and Jimmy Fallon revealed the group chat moment during Stephen Colbert’s final-weeks celebration on May 11
• The drama stems from Kimmel’s “expectant widow” joke about Melania, made days before a shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner
• Kimmel later defended the joke as a “light roast” about the 23-year age gap between Donald and Melania Trump
• ABC stood by Kimmel, and he appeared at Disney’s upfront event this week joking about the whole ordeal

When Melania Trump went on social media demanding that ABC fire Jimmy Kimmel, the late-night host’s first move wasn’t a press statement or a call to his lawyer. He opened a group chat with his fellow comedians and typed two words: “Oh boy.”

That detail came out Monday night during a star-studded episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, where Kimmel was joined by Seth Meyers, John Oliver, and Jimmy Fallon for a reunion of the Strike Force Five crew — all gathering to celebrate Colbert’s final weeks on air before his May 21 finale. At one point, Colbert asked the group if they’d ever imagined doing jobs that the president of the United States would have “strong feelings about.”

That’s when Kimmel couldn’t help himself.

“You know what’s even weirder? Doing a job that his wife has strong feelings about,” he said, drawing instant laughter. “That’s where it crosses over.”

“Most of us have avoided that part,” Meyers deadpanned.

Oliver then let the group chat secret out. “It’s an amazing thing to get a text from Jimmy saying ‘Oh boy,’ and then a picture of Melania mad at him,” he said. “What a way to start the day.”

Fallon, never one to let a moment pass, admitted he had a slightly different reaction. “And then I sent a text to you guys, and I said, ‘Hey, don’t be mad at me, but I liked it.’ I think she’s got a point.”

How the ‘Expectant Widow’ Joke Became a White House Crisis

The joke that started everything aired on April 23, when Kimmel performed an “alternative” White House Correspondents’ Dinner segment on Jimmy Kimmel Live! Standing in for the real event — which the late-night community has largely boycotted — he looked into the camera and said: “Our first lady, Melania, is here. Look at Melania, so beautiful. Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow.”

Two days later, a gunman opened fire at the hotel hosting the actual White House Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington, D.C., in what authorities described as an attempt targeting the president and members of his administration. The timing turned Kimmel’s joke — a riff on the 23-year age gap between Donald, 79, and Melania, 56 — into something the White House was determined to treat as far more sinister.

Melania posted publicly, writing in part: “It is time for ABC to take a stand. How many times will ABC’s leadership enable Kimmel’s atrocious behavior at the expense of our community?” She also called him a “coward” and said “people like Kimmel shouldn’t have the opportunity to enter our homes each evening to spread hate.”

The president went further. On Truth Social, Trump wrote: “When is ABC Fake News Network firing seriously unfunny Jimmy Kimmel, who incompetently presides over one of the Lowest Rated shows on Television. People are angry. It better be soon!!!” In a separate post, he called it “something far beyond the pale” and demanded Kimmel be “immediately fired by Disney and ABC.”

MAGA influencers piled on. Conservative talk shows spent weeks dissecting the joke. The FCC, notably, announced it was investigating Disney-owned broadcast networks over their DEI practices — a move that came just one day after Trump’s firing demand, and which Disney pushed back against, saying the agency’s actions “threaten to upend decades of settled law and practice and chill critical protected speech.”

Kimmel didn’t back down. He addressed the controversy on his April 27 monologue, calling it “obviously a joke about their age difference and the look of joy we see on her face every time they’re together.” He added: “It was a very light roast joke about the fact that he’s almost 80 and she’s younger than I am. It was not by any stretch a call to assassination.” And then he turned it back on Melania directly: “I agree that hateful and violent rhetoric is something we should reject. I do. And I think a great place to start to dial that back would be to have a conversation with your husband about it.”

ABC stood by him. The drama, eventually, fizzled.

The “Saddest Part” of Getting Called Out by the White House

Back on Colbert’s couch Monday, Colbert pressed Kimmel on what it actually feels like to wake up and see that kind of attention rolling in from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

“The saddest part of it,” Kimmel said, “is that I realize in those moments that the only four people who care are sitting right here. It takes 12 hours for the rest of the people in my life to even figure out that anything’s going on.”

He paused for effect. “Two hours after that, a guy I used to work with sent me a text. He’s like, ‘Hey, do you know a real estate lawyer?'”

The room fell apart. It’s a very Kimmel observation — the absurdity that a presidential call for your firing barely registers outside a very small circle of people who are, at this point, almost used to it.

Back to Business at Disney’s Upfront

That same sense of humor was on full display the next day, when Kimmel appeared at Disney’s annual advertising upfront presentation on Tuesday — very much still employed, very much still cracking jokes.

“I didn’t think I’d ever see you guys again either,” he told the room of advertisers, acknowledging the elephant directly. He noted that his ratings are actually up this year, crediting “our partners in Washington” for the boost.

On the subject of ABC pulling shows from the air, he quipped: “Usually in order for ABC to pull you off the air, you have to throw a chair at your Mormon boyfriend” — a pointed reference to Secret Lives of Mormon Wives star Taylor Frankie Paul, whose Bachelorette season was shelved amid her own controversy.

“Yes, the president has tried to get me twice over the last six months — that’s one way to look at it,” Kimmel said. “You could also say I’ve generated unparalleled engagement across a variety of platforms.”

He closed his roughly ten-minute monologue with a line that got the room: “Hiring me 24 years ago, just from a purely mathematical standpoint, was the worst personnel decision that Disney Corporation has ever made.”

Then, near the end: “That’s it for me — probably forever.”

It’s the kind of joke that only lands if you’re not actually worried. And right now, at least, Kimmel doesn’t seem to be.

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• Jimmy Kimmel texted fellow late-night hosts “Oh, boy” after Melania Trump publicly called him out on social media
• John Oliver, Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers, and Kimmel appeared together on a special episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
• The drama stems from Kimmel’s joke that Melania had “a glow like an expectant widow” — made days before a gunman targeted the WHCA dinner
• Both Donald and Melania Trump demanded ABC and Disney fire Kimmel over the remark
• The Late Show reunion was part of a farewell run for Colbert, whose final episode airs May 21

When Melania Trump went on social media to blast Jimmy Kimmel for a joke about her, Kimmel did what any reasonable person would do: he texted the group chat. And according to John Oliver, those first two words said everything.

“It’s an amazing thing to get a text from Jimmy saying ‘Oh, boy,’ and then a picture of Melania mad at him,” Oliver told the audience during Monday’s special episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. “What a way to start the day!”

The episode brought together five of late-night’s biggest names — Colbert, Kimmel, Oliver, Jimmy Fallon, and Seth Meyers — for a rare joint appearance as Colbert counts down to his final broadcast on May 21. It was a reunion of the Strike Force Five podcast crew, and the conversation quickly turned to the controversy that had dogged Kimmel for weeks.

The Joke That Started It All

On April 23, Kimmel taped what he called an “alternative” White House Correspondents’ Dinner segment for Jimmy Kimmel Live! — a parody roast that included a pointed line about the first lady. “Our first lady, Melania, is here. Look at Melania, so beautiful. Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow,” Kimmel said during the bit.

The timing became deeply complicated when, two days later, a gunman was stopped attempting to enter the Washington, D.C. Hilton where the actual WHCA dinner was being held, with what authorities described as apparent designs on killing the president and members of his Cabinet. Melania seized on the moment, posting on April 27 that Kimmel’s joke amounted to “hateful and violent rhetoric” that was “intended to divide our country” and calling on ABC to “take a stand” against him.

Donald Trump went further on Truth Social: “This is something far beyond the pale. Jimmy Kimmel should be immediately fired by Disney and ABC.” And then, separately: “When is ABC Fake News Network firing seriously unfunny Jimmy Kimmel, who incompetently presides over one of the Lowest Rated shows on Television. People are angry. It better be soon!!!”

Melania also called Kimmel a “coward,” saying “people like Kimmel shouldn’t have the opportunity to enter our homes each evening to spread hate.”

Kimmel addressed it directly in his April 27 monologue, describing the comment as “obviously a joke about their age difference and the look of joy we see on her face every time they’re together.” He was more blunt in a follow-up: “It was a very light roast joke about the fact that he’s almost 80 and she’s younger than I am. It was not by any stretch a call to assassination.”

The Group Chat Reaction

Back on Monday’s Late Show, Colbert asked the group whether they had ever imagined they’d be doing jobs the president of the United States had “strong feelings” about.

“You know what’s even weirder?” Kimmel said. “Doing a job that his wife has strong feelings about.”

“Most of us have avoided that part,” Meyers deadpanned.

That’s when Oliver dropped the detail about the group text — the “Oh, boy” message paired with a screenshot of Melania’s post. And then Fallon, never one to miss a moment, cheerfully threw Kimmel under the bus.

“And then I sent a text to you guys, and I said, ‘Hey, don’t be mad at me, but I liked it,'” Fallon said. “I think she’s got a point.”

When Colbert pressed Kimmel on how it feels to wake up and see that kind of attention rolling in, the answer was more self-deprecating than you might expect from someone at the center of a White House firestorm.

“The saddest part of it is that I realize in those moments that the only four people who care are sitting right here,” Kimmel said. “It takes 12 hours for the rest of the people in my life to even figure out that anything’s going on.” He paused, then added the kicker: “Two hours after that, a guy I used to work with sent me a text. He’s like, ‘Hey, do you know a real estate lawyer?'”

A Farewell With a Few Scores to Settle

The Melania drama wasn’t the only thing on the table. The episode had a charged undercurrent throughout, because everyone in that room knows what’s coming: Colbert’s last show airs May 21, after CBS announced it was ending The Late Show for what the network called financial reasons.

Colbert has been measured but pointed about the decision, particularly given that it came after Paramount Global — CBS’s parent company — settled a lawsuit brought by Trump over a 60 Minutes interview for $16 million. “The network had clearly already done it once by cutting that $16 million check,” Colbert told The Hollywood Reporter. “There are many people who believe there was another reason. And, as I said in the most measured tones I could muster, there is a reason why people believe that.”

Kimmel wasn’t quite as measured. He called out CBS and Paramount+ directly, asking the audience, “Why aren’t you people canceling Paramount+? Because you didn’t have it in the first place?” And when Colbert asked if there was anything left to say, Kimmel didn’t hold back: “The outrage that your show is being thrown off the air? I am waiting for angry Stephen to come out. I want to see you go nuts.”

The audience chanted Colbert’s name. Oliver joked, “That’s exactly what they shouted at Bruce Banner in the lab before things went south.” Kimmel, for his part, kept it going: “When this guy takes off his glasses and shakes out his hair, it’s the sexiest god—- thing that you’ve ever seen.”

Kimmel also announced he won’t air a new episode on the night of Colbert’s finale — the same gesture he made when David Letterman signed off years ago.

When someone brought up the likelihood that Colbert’s cancellation might eventually shrink the group, Kimmel found the line of the night: “Don’t worry, give me a few months and it’ll be Strike Force Three.”

The post Kimmel’s 2-Word Text After Melania Came for Him appeared first on Cream.

• Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers, and John Oliver reunited with Stephen Colbert on Monday’s Late Show as Strike Force Five
• The group announced a surprise video episode of their podcast, dropping May 13 on Spotify and YouTube
• Proceeds from the new episode will benefit World Central Kitchen, as with the original 12 installments
• The Late Show’s series finale is set for May 21 — David Letterman will appear Thursday’s episode
• Jimmy Kimmel confirmed he’ll go dark on May 21 out of deference to Colbert’s sendoff

There are nights in late-night television that remind you exactly why the format matters. Monday was one of them.

Strike Force Five — Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers, and John Oliver — reassembled on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert for what felt like the most emotionally loaded half hour of TV this year. With Colbert’s series finale just nine days away, his four fellow hosts showed up on that famous Ed Sullivan Theater stage and turned a farewell into something that felt genuinely alive.

Colbert introduced them as “four of my best television friends and co-hosts of the awards-ignored podcast” — and from the moment they walked through the curtain, it was pure, unfiltered late-night magic. Fallon immediately rallied everyone for a group photo. Meyers slid into his signature pretend-smarm. Oliver was practically giddy the whole time, giggling at nearly everything but snapping to attention when a punchline needed landing. And Kimmel — well, Kimmel dropped a joke about a “young wife dying” as a metaphor for the show’s cancellation that reportedly almost knocked people out of their chairs. “It’s sad, is what I’m saying,” he deadpanned. “It’s such a tragedy.”

Where Strike Force Five Began — and Where It’s Going

For anyone who needs the origin story: Strike Force Five was born in May 2023, when the WGA strike shut down Hollywood and left five late-night hosts suddenly without writers or a show. Rather than go quiet, they started meeting weekly on Zoom — and those conversations became a podcast. Twelve episodes, all candid and funny and a little chaotic, with revenue going directly to support their out-of-work staff. “Strike Force Five is and always will be a group of five individuals who went on strike along with their writers, who were paying their writers,” Kimmel explained on air. “We did a podcast that paid a tiny portion of that.”

The show may have wrapped after the strikes ended, but the group text chain never did. Oliver mentioned getting a message from Kimmel that simply said “Oh boy” — followed by a photo of Melania Trump furious at him after he called her an “expectant widow” on his show. “Most of us have avoided that part,” Meyers quipped.

All five agreed they never quite anticipated becoming regular targets of a sitting president. Trump, who frequently calls for late-night hosts to be fired, apparently watches the shows in real time before posting about them on social media. Meyers found the silver lining: “I appreciate that he is watching linear television. If I would make my case for late night, it’s that leaders of the free world are watching it when it airs.”

Making the Case for Late Night

Colbert has grown visibly frustrated in recent months at being asked to defend late-night television’s relevance — a question that feels particularly pointed given his show is ending while others survive. On Monday, the group tackled it head-on.

Kimmel pushed back on the doom narrative hard. “Look at the figures,” he said. “More people are watching late-night television now than when Johnny Carson was on” — counting YouTube and streaming alongside traditional TV numbers. He also pointed out that when ABC briefly pulled him off air in 2025 following his comments about Charlie Kirk, viewers canceled Disney+ in protest. Then, with perfect Kimmel timing, he turned to the audience: “Why aren’t you people canceling Paramount+? Because you didn’t have it in the first place?”

Fallon kept it simple: “Late night is one of those things that has been around our whole lives. People want to go to sleep having a good laugh and go to bed happy.”

But honestly, no argument any of them made was more convincing than the segment itself.

Confessions, Kisses, and a Surprise Announcement

The night wrapped with a round of Strike Force Five confessions — specifically, which hosts had kissed one of their guests. Kimmel owned up to kissing Regis Philbin. “Not only did I kiss Regis, but he chewed my gum,” he said. Colbert, apparently, has been busy: Helen Mirren, Sally Field, Allison Janney, Jeff Daniels, and Andrew Garfield all made the list. “Jane Fonda and I did not make out,” he added, “but she stuck her tongue in my ear.”

Then came the news nobody saw coming. As the group moved in for a final group hug on Colbert’s desk, he announced that an emergency Strike Force Five episode would be recorded immediately after the show — and made available Wednesday, May 13. Both Colbert and Kimmel confirmed it on Instagram: “Emergency @strikeforcefive episode loading! ⚡”

The new episode will be available on their YouTube channel, Spotify, and wherever podcasts are found. And in keeping with the spirit of the original run, proceeds will go to World Central Kitchen, José Andrés’ nonprofit that provides meals during humanitarian crises.

Kimmel also confirmed separately that he’ll air a repeat on May 21 — going dark that night “out of deference to Colbert’s sendoff.” David Letterman, Colbert’s predecessor at the Late Show desk, is set to appear on Thursday’s episode.

There was something bittersweet about watching these four men show up to celebrate — and quietly mourn — what Colbert built. It felt, as one observer put it, like a sitcom character running into old guest stars in the final few episodes. A sendoff dressed up as a party.

But if Colbert has to go out, this is how you do it. And at least now we know who has the highest rating on Wikifeet.

The post Strike Force Five Reunites on Late Show for One Last Time appeared first on Cream.

• Stephen Colbert hosted Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, John Oliver, and Seth Meyers on Monday’s Late Show for a late-night summit
• Kimmel offered Colbert a full-time hosting gig; Fallon told him he was welcome “anytime” — then jokingly dodged pinning down a date
• The hosts riffed on Trump’s fixation with late-night, Kimmel’s brief suspension, and Melania’s outrage over a joke
• The Late Show with Stephen Colbert ends May 21, replaced by Byron Allen’s Comics Unleashed
• David Letterman has called CBS leadership “lying weasels” over the cancellation

Stephen Colbert isn’t going quietly. With just days left before The Late Show goes dark on May 21, he pulled off one of the most memorable tapings of his run — gathering Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, John Oliver, and Seth Meyers on his stage for a late-night summit that was equal parts roast, reunion, and goodbye.

The mood was warm but the jokes were sharp. When Colbert reflected that ending the show was a “bummer” because he’d wanted to keep going with his crew, he quickly pivoted to the silver lining: “Now I can be a guest on all your shows.”

Kimmel didn’t miss a beat. “You can host my show,” he shot back. Colbert asked if he could step in during the summer, and Kimmel told him he could be there all year. Fallon echoed the offer, saying Colbert was welcome on The Tonight Show “anytime you want to go on” — then, when Colbert pressed him for an actual date, Fallon grinned and said, “Enjoy a little time off.”

Trump, Melania, and the Group Chat

The conversation turned to the elephant in the room — or rather, the one posting on Truth Social during their shows. Colbert asked his fellow hosts whether, as young comedians coming up, any of them imagined they’d be doing jobs that the President of the United States would have “strong feelings about.”

Kimmel, who has been in Trump’s crosshairs more than once, went there immediately. “You know what’s even weirder? Doing a job that his wife has strong feelings about.” That was a nod to the moment in April when both Trump and Melania called for Kimmel’s suspension after he joked she had a “glow like an expectant widow.”

Meyers quipped: “Most of us have avoided that part.”

Oliver then revealed that he found out about Kimmel’s Melania situation through their late-night group chat — yes, there is a late-night group chat. “It’s an amazing thing to get, in a group text, a text from Jimmy saying, ‘Oh, boy.’ And then a picture of Melania mad at him,” Oliver said, laughing.

Meyers had perhaps the most perfectly deadpan take on the whole Trump-watching-late-night phenomenon. “The thing I like, he posts when the show airs, and I want to say I appreciate that he is watching linear television,” he said. “If I would make my case for late-night, it’s that leaders of the free world are watching it when it airs.”

Making the Case for Late-Night

Colbert also asked his guests to make a case for the genre, which has taken its hits in recent years. Kimmel pointed to the audience loyalty he witnessed firsthand when Jimmy Kimmel Live! was briefly pulled off the air last September following controversy over comments he made about political activist Charlie Kirk’s shooting.

“We have a lot of shows. 30,000 people watching each one, and it adds up,” Kimmel said. “People watch us on YouTube now. People have a lot of different options and they keep coming to us. I will tell you, when I got knocked off the air for a few days, people canceled Disney+. Why aren’t people canceling Paramount+? Because you never had it in the first place?”

That last line hit differently given the context. CBS announced the cancellation of The Late Show back in July, calling it “purely a financial decision” — though the timing raised eyebrows. It came shortly after Colbert made a joke about CBS paying a $16 million settlement to Trump over a lawsuit alleging “deceptive editing” in a 60 Minutes episode, and while Paramount’s merger with David Ellison’s Skydance was still awaiting FCC approval.

What Comes Next — and What Letterman Said

The 11:35 p.m. slot won’t go to another traditional late-night host. CBS has handed it to producer Byron Allen, who will air back-to-back half-hour episodes of Comics Unleashed, followed by the comedy game show Funny You Should Ask at 12:37 a.m.

Colbert, characteristically gracious, said he personally reached out to Allen the morning after the announcement. “God bless him. I know Byron. We got to know each other last year, actually. He’s fascinating. You know his history with Carson?” Colbert told The Hollywood Reporter, referencing the fact that Allen became the youngest comic ever to perform on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson at just 18 years old. Colbert joked that he told Allen it would be “lovely” if he could drop Carson a note — a wink at the fact that Johnny Carson died in 2005.

As for whether he minded the slot not going to a traditional late-night successor? “It’s none of my business,” Colbert said simply.

Not everyone has been so measured about the whole thing. David Letterman, who will be among Colbert’s final guests before the May 21 finale, has been the loudest voice calling out CBS over the cancellation. In a recent interview, Letterman accused the network’s leadership of engineering Colbert’s exit as part of the Skydance deal — and he didn’t mince words.

“He was dumped because the people selling the network to Skydance said, ‘Oh no, there’s not going to be any trouble with that guy. We’re going to take care of the show. We’re just going to throw that into the deal. When will the ink on the check dry?'” Letterman said. “I’m just going to go on record as saying: They’re lying. Let me just add one other thing, Jason. They’re lying weasels.”

Colbert’s final episode airs Thursday, May 21 on CBS. After more than a decade behind that desk, he’ll leave with his crew, his peers, and apparently an open invitation to guest host pretty much anywhere he wants — though Fallon would prefer he take a vacation first.

The post Late Night Hosts Tell Colbert He Can Host Their Shows Anytime appeared first on Cream.

• Jimmy Kimmel Live! will not air a new episode on May 21, the night of Stephen Colbert’s Late Show finale on CBS.
• Kimmel made the same move in 2015 for David Letterman’s final Late Show broadcast.
• Colbert, Kimmel, Fallon, Meyers, and Oliver will reunite on May 11 for a Strike Force Five reprise.
• CBS canceled The Late Show in July 2025, citing financial pressures — a decision many tied to Paramount’s merger with Skydance.
• NBC’s Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon was still scheduled to air a new episode on finale night.

Jimmy Kimmel is stepping aside for his friend’s final bow. Jimmy Kimmel Live! will go dark on Thursday, May 21 — the night The Late Show with Stephen Colbert airs its last episode on CBS — with ABC opting to run a repeat in its place. The decision, first reported by LateNighter, is being made “out of deference to Colbert’s sendoff.”

New episodes of Kimmel’s show will air as scheduled Monday through Wednesday, May 18–20. But Thursday night belongs to Colbert.

It’s a gesture Kimmel has made exactly once before. On May 20, 2015, he pulled a new episode the night David Letterman signed off from the same CBS franchise. “I have too much respect for Dave to do anything that would distract viewers from watching his final show,” Kimmel said at the time. That instinct — to get out of the way when history is being made — is apparently still his instinct now.

A Friendship Forged Under Fire

Kimmel and Colbert have been competitors at 11:35 p.m. for years, but their relationship runs much deeper than ratings. When CBS announced the cancellation last July, Kimmel didn’t stay quiet. He took to Instagram Stories to post: “Love you Stephen. F— you and all your Sheldons CBS.” He also put up a billboard in Los Angeles encouraging Emmy voters to back Colbert for Outstanding Talk Series — a category The Late Show went on to win. At the ceremony, Colbert thanked CBS for “giving us the privilege to be part of the late-night tradition, which I hope continues long after we’re no longer doing the show.”

The two also go back to the early COVID days, when they worked together during the pandemic, and to the summer of 2023, when the Hollywood writers’ and actors’ strikes brought late night to a standstill. Kimmel, Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers, and John Oliver launched the Strike Force Five podcast during that period, donating proceeds to support their out-of-work employees. Now, all five are reuniting on the May 11 episode of The Late Show for one last reprise before the curtain comes down.

David Letterman — the man who built the franchise Colbert is now closing — will also stop by for the May 14 episode. Letterman, 79, hosted Late Night on NBC from 1982 to 1993 before moving to CBS, where he launched The Late Show in 1993. Colbert took the desk in September 2015 and has been there for 11 seasons since.

Jimmy Fallon, for his part, has already been paying tribute. Back in March, he serenaded Colbert with a surprise rendition of Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” — a moment that landed exactly as intended.

The Cancellation That Shocked Late Night

CBS announced it was ending The Late Show franchise entirely in July 2025, calling it “purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night” and stating it was “not related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount.” The timing, though, raised eyebrows everywhere. The announcement came just days after Colbert called Paramount Global’s $16 million settlement of Donald Trump’s lawsuit over a 60 Minutes interview a “big fat bribe” — a settlement that many legal experts had already dismissed as frivolous. It also landed as Paramount was working to finalize its $8 billion merger with David Ellison’s Skydance Media, which the FCC ultimately approved in August 2025.

Numerous media figures criticized the cancellation as a capitulation to political pressure. Paramount pushed back firmly, reiterating the financial rationale. Whatever the reason, the result is the same: a franchise that launched in 1993 ends on May 21.

What replaces it isn’t exactly a comfort. Comics Unleashed with Byron Allen, currently airing at 12:35 a.m., will move into the 11:35 slot — a show Allen leases airtime for rather than one CBS produces, and one that’s been widely criticized as sanitized and cheaply produced.

As for Colbert, 61, he hasn’t announced what’s next — but he’s not exactly sitting still. The lifelong Lord of the Rings devotee is developing a new film in the franchise alongside his son and Warner Bros. Nearly three decades of political satire, and his next chapter involves Middle-earth. Honestly, that tracks.

NBC’s Tonight Show had not announced any plans to pull its May 21 episode as of press time — meaning Fallon will be on the air while Colbert takes his final bow. But Kimmel won’t be. Some gestures speak for themselves.

The post Kimmel Goes Dark for Colbert’s Final Late Show appeared first on Cream.

• Jimmy Kimmel will air a rerun on May 21 so viewers can focus on Stephen Colbert’s Late Show finale without competition
• Kimmel did the same thing for David Letterman’s final Late Show in 2015, setting a precedent he’s now repeating
• Colbert’s final week features Tom Hanks, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Pedro Pascal, Barack Obama, and Letterman himself returning to the Ed Sullivan Theater
• The Late Show was canceled by CBS in July 2025 in what many have called a politically motivated decision tied to the Paramount-Skydance merger
• Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show is currently still scheduled to air a new episode opposite Colbert’s finale

Jimmy Kimmel is stepping aside for Stephen Colbert. On May 21 — the night of Colbert’s final episode of The Late Show on CBS — Jimmy Kimmel Live! will air a rerun, a quiet but meaningful gesture of respect from one late-night host to another. ABC confirmed the decision, with LateNighter first reporting that Kimmel personally confirmed he’d go dark that night out of deference to Colbert’s sendoff.

It’s not the first time Kimmel has done this. In May 2015, he made the same call for David Letterman’s farewell, urging his own audience to change the channel. “Please do not watch it,” Kimmel said at the time. “Especially if you’re a young person who doesn’t understand what all the fuss is about. Dave is the best and you should see him.” Eleven years later, the same spirit applies — just a different legend walking out the door.

What makes it sting a little more this time is the reason Colbert is leaving in the first place. CBS announced the cancellation in July 2025, framing it as a purely financial decision — the network cited an alleged $40 million annual loss. But the timing raised eyebrows immediately: the ax fell shortly after Colbert publicly criticized CBS’s parent company Paramount for settling a lawsuit brought by President Donald Trump over a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris. The FCC approved the $8 billion Skydance-Paramount merger roughly a week after the cancellation was announced. Trump, for his part, has repeatedly celebrated the show’s end.

Kimmel, who has called the $40 million loss figure “beyond nonsensical,” is no stranger to the current political climate himself. Trump urged ABC last month to fire Kimmel over a joke about Melania Trump, and FCC chairman Brendan Carr previously threatened ABC over a Kimmel joke following Charlie Kirk’s assassination attempt — a threat serious enough that Disney temporarily suspended Kimmel hours after it was made.

Notably, NBC’s The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon is currently still scheduled to air a new episode on May 21, meaning Colbert will have at least one 11:35 competitor that night — though Fallon will be front and center at Colbert’s table days earlier.

A Final Week That Looks Like a Greatest Hits Album

The send-off Colbert is getting is something else entirely. The final week of The Late Show is shaping up to be one of the most stacked stretches of late-night television in years.

It kicks off Monday, May 11, with a full Strike Force Five reunion. Kimmel, Fallon, Seth Meyers, and John Oliver will all join Colbert on the same couch — a callback to the podcast the five hosts launched together during the concurrent Writers Guild and SAG-AFTRA strikes in 2023, with proceeds going to their crew members who went without pay during the work stoppage. TV Guide critic Matt Roush called it a genuine moment: “He’s gonna make a little bit of Late Night history on Monday night.” Monday’s episode will also feature a Broadway performance from Annaleigh Ashford, Christopher Jackson, Bernadette Peters, Ben Platt, and Patrick Wilson.

Tuesday brings Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Pedro Pascal. Wednesday is Tom Hanks — and, in what might be the week’s most talked-about segment, former President Barack Obama will sit down for The Colbert Questionert, the recurring bit where famous guests answer personal questions about things like their favorite sandwich and first concert.

Then Thursday. Letterman comes home.

David Letterman — who launched The Late Show in 1993, hosted it for 22 years, and handed the keys to Colbert in 2015 — will return to the Ed Sullivan Theater for what will almost certainly be an emotional night. The Strokes are the musical guest. And Kimmel’s screen will be dark.

Letterman hasn’t been quiet about how he feels about all of this. In a recent interview with the New York Times, he went after CBS with characteristic bluntness: “He was dumped because the people selling the network to Skydance said, ‘Oh no, there’s not going to be any trouble with that guy. We’re going to take care of the show. We’re just going to throw that into the deal. When will the ink on the check dry?’ I’m just going to go on record as saying: They’re lying. Let me just add one other thing, Jason. They’re lying weasels.”

Colbert himself has been more measured, but no less candid. In a recent Hollywood Reporter exit interview, he recalled the phone call with CBS entertainment head George Cheeks after the cancellation — noting that Cheeks told his manager first, and didn’t speak with Colbert directly until later in the summer. When they did talk, Colbert made one thing clear: he was going to address the widespread belief that the cancellation was politically motivated, and he wasn’t going to pretend otherwise.

He’s also been characteristically funny about what comes next. Colbert mentioned a Lord of the Rings script in the pipeline, some “much more important” family events on the calendar, and admitted he’s genuinely relieved at the idea of stepping away from the daily news cycle. He’s even got one dream booking he’s still chasing: Pope Leo XIV, whom he called his “white whale.” “I wrote him,” Colbert told THR. “I said, ‘Your Holiness, I hope this letter finds you well or, at the very least, infallible. Would you please come on my show?'” And with a very Colbert twist: “Now, if the pope goes on Kimmel instead, I’m going to think hard about the Presbyterian church. That’s all I’m saying.”

https://youtube.com/watch?v=RIUIBuPCS9Y%3Frel%3D0

After May 21, the 11:35 p.m. slot on CBS will go to Byron Allen and his Allen Media Group, with back-to-back episodes of Comics Unleashed moving in starting May 22. The Ed Sullivan Theater — where Letterman reigned for over two decades and Colbert for eleven more years — will face its own uncertain future.

“I don’t know,” Roush said of the iconic venue. “It’s such a historic venue. I can’t imagine they won’t use it for something.”

For now, the only thing that matters is May 21. And on that night, at least one of Colbert’s rivals will make sure you don’t have to choose.

The post Kimmel Goes Dark for Colbert’s Final Late Show appeared first on Cream.