Stephen Colbert has set an all-star lineup of late-night hosts as some of his final guests on “The Late Show,” which will conclude on May 21 after being canceled by CBS last year.
On May 11, Colbert will interview Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers and John Oliver. As the hosts of their own late-night talk shows on NBC, ABC and HBO, they worked with Colbert in 2023 to co-host a podcast called “Strike Force Five” that ran during the concurrent Writers Guild and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Proceeds from the podcast went towards supporting the crew members of their respective shows as they went without pay in accordance with the work stoppage.
David Letterman, the original host of “The Late Show,” will be Colbert’s guest on May 14. After hosting “Late Night” on NBC from 1982 to 1993, Letterman moved to CBS and continued hosting “The Late Show” until handing the reins to Colbert upon retirement in 2015.
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Other guests stopping by “The Late Show” as it winds down include John Krasinski, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Pedro Pascal and Tom Hanks. The show will also feature several special segments in upcoming episodes: “Kids Pitch” with Jenny Slate, Liam Neeson, John Oliver, Isa Briones, Taylor Dearden and The Avett Brothers; a Broadway performance featuring Annaleigh Ashford, Christopher Jackson, Bernadette Peters, Ben Platt and Patrick Wilson; a “Colbert Questionert” taken by Barack Obama; and a performance by the Strokes.
News of CBS’ cancellation of “The Late Show” broke in July 2025. Though the network cited a “financial decision,” many prominent voices have called it an act of censorship as the move came during a period when parent company Paramount was seeking approval from Donald Trump’s FCC for its sale to Skydance. Colbert is a frequent critic of Trump, and Trump has repeatedly celebrated the show’s cancellation.
Letterman in particular has been a vocal critic of CBS’ decision, most recently calling the network “lying weasels” in an interview with New York Times journalist Jason Zinoman: “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.”
