Stephen Colbert’s 11-year run as host of “The Late Show” will end on May 21. That its untimely end was announced mere weeks before the Trump-loyalist Ellison family finalized their CBS-Paramount takeover led many to believe it was a move to appease Trump, while the network claimed Colbert’s late-night program was losing around $40 million a year – a figure that led friendly rival Jimmy Kimmel to quip, “Not a snowball’s chance in hell that’s accurate.”
President Trump was positively giddy over Colbert’s ouster, lending even more credence to the aforementioned theory, posting to Truth Social, “I absolutely love that Colbert got fired. His talent was even less than his ratings. I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next. Has even less talent than Colbert!”
Well, whatever the reason, Colbert is out in a week. And so, for his final weeks, the funnyman has welcomed an assortment of friends and A-listers, from his fellow late-night hosts Kimmel, Oliver, Meyers, and Fallon, to the likes of Tom Hanks, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and former president Barack Obama. And on Thursday night, Colbert welcomed his “Late Show” predecessor, the great David Letterman, whose big, bushy beard now resembles Joaquin Phoenix’s during his infamous performance art stunt on his show.
After a lengthy standing ovation – and a killer “Seven Nation Army” musical intro – Letterman took the stage to commiserate with Colbert.
“Well, you know what happened backstage? I’m standing backstage, a guy comes over, he says he’s from CBS and he fires me. What is going on over there?!” Letterman cracked.
“I have every right to be pissed off, so I’ll be pissed off here a little bit,” he continued. “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. But, listen… as we all understand, you can take a man’s show, you can’t take a man’s voice.”
And then Letterman gave the punchline: “What I’m really worried about is: What will become of the Jimmys? Are they going to be alright?” referring to Colbert’s late-night compatriots Kimmel and Fallon.
“We’ve got a plan to put them in a captive breeding program,” joked Colbert.
He wasn’t done. Letterman asked Colbert if Skydance owned the furniture onstage, and when Colbert told him the network did, he greased a few stagehands to have the couches removed, before the two joined the audience in seats and reminisced about their history in Manhattan’s famed Ed Sullivan Theater, which for Colbert has, as Letterman put it, “come to a screeching halt by other hands.” Then, they went to the roof of the Ed Sullivan theater to engage in “wanton destruction of CBS property” by having the stagehands toss those couches off the roof and onto a giant CBS logo, before tossing his desk chair, followed by some watermelons and a wedding cake (because why not?).