Stephen Colbert hosted his fellow late-night frontmen Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers and John Oliver on Monday’s episode of “The Late Show.” The meeting of the minds was a send-off for Colbert as he enters his final days as the face of “The Late Show,” which goes off the air for good on May 21.
Partway through the joint interview, Colbert prompted his guests to “make a case for late-night,” given that the genre has struggled in recent years. Kimmel was the first to go. He emphasized the strength of late-night’s fanbase, which he experienced firsthand when “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” was briefly suspended.
“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?”
Colbert then posed another question to the group. He asked his fellow hosts if, as young comedians, they ever thought they’d be “doing a job that the President of the United States would have strong feelings about?”
Kimmel once again took the lead, referring to his recent spat with First Lady Melania Trump. He said, “You know what’s even weirder? Doing a job that his wife has strong feelings about.”
Meyers quipped back, “Most of us have avoided that part.”
Oliver then recalled the moment he found out Kimmel was in hot water with the First Lady via their late-night group chat.
The “Last Week Tonight“ host said, laughing, “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.”
Meyers then chimed in again, saying that he likes it when Trump posts on Truth Social during his show because it means he’s tuning in live, and in that way, supporting the show.
“The thing I like, he posts when the show airs, and I want to say I appreciate that he is watching linear television,” Meyers said. “If I would make my case for late-night, it’s that leaders of the free world are watching it when it airs.”
CBS revealed it was cancelling “The Late Show” in July 2025 and cited the move as a “financial decision.” However, some have speculated that Colbert was pulled to help smooth out the merger between Paramount, CBS’ parent company, and David Ellison’s Skydance. At that time, the merger was still awaiting approval from the FCC, and by proxy, President Trump, a vocal critic of Colbert and late-night as a whole.
Former “Late Show” host David Letterman, who will be among Colbert’s final guests, has been one of the most outspoken detractors of CBS’ decision. In a recent interview with New York Times journalist Jason Zinoman, Letterman slammed the network’s leadership as “lying weasels.”
“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.”