The Late Show is coming to an end, and the goodbye party now has a date.
The Stephen Colbert-hosted late-night show will end on Thursday, May 21, Deadline has confirmed.
CBS always said that the series, which has been running since 1993, was going to end in May after it emerged the franchise was being axed.
Colbert revealed the news during an appearance on rival talker Late Night with Seth Meyers, which is set to air tonight (January 27) on NBC, per LateNighter.
CBS surprisingly canceled the show in July, days after the comedian had called his parent company Paramount Global’s settlement of a lawsuit from Donald Trump a “bigfatbribe.” The news came a month before David Ellison’s Skydance closed its merger with Paramount.
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Execs at the broadcast network stressed that the move was “purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late-night” and “is not related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount.”
Colbert hasn’t toned down his rhetoric against Trump or Paramount since being told he was being fired. On Monday night, he said, “I think we can all agree: F*ck ICE,” in response to the killing of Alex Pretti by a Border Patrol agent in Minneapolis.
Last week, he mocked the idea of Trump’s “Board of Peace,” which has seen the president charging people $1B to join. “Now, admittedly, the idea of paying a billion dollars to obey Donald Trump seems a little steep,” Colbert said. “After all, CBS got to do it for just $16M.”
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Colbert also has been on an awards tear since the news emerged; in September, the show won the Emmy for Outstanding Talk Series.
“I want to thank 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 this show,” he said onstage.
Next month, he will receive the Walter Bernstein Award from the Writers Guild of America East and The Late Show will also be vying for another Emmy in September, although this year will face tough competition from Jimmy Kimmel Live!, whose host has faced his own late-night drama this year.
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