Colbert says farewell as McCartney returns to the Late Show

Stephen Colbert closed out 11 years on CBS’ “The Late Show” with a star-studded finale featuring Paul McCartney at the Ed Sullivan Theater, while Colbert also reflected on moments from his run—ranging from a 2017 retirement of his “Stephen Colbert” alter ego t

Stephen Colbert walked into the Ed Sullivan Theater on Thursday night knowing the doors were closing behind him.

After 11 years on CBS’ “The Late Show. ” he ended his run with a finale that was star-studded and slightly surreal—paced by the kind of timing that feels bigger than television. Paul McCartney returned to the theater, and the moment landed as more than a guest appearance. It was the kind of symbolic flourish that only a long-running late-night stage can pull off.

The setting also carried a quiet contrast: the finale came at a time when late-night has been full of what Seth Meyers described during the show’s closing stretch—“middle-aged white [men] telling jokes about the news.” Colbert’s path to that stage started very differently. His brash. ironic persona—built on “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report”—was softened early in his “Late Show” run. Over the years. Colbert brought back “a bit of his bite. ” especially after CBS made the controversial decision to permanently end “The Late Show” last summer.

Even with the sharper angles returning over time, Colbert’s appeal, more often than not, came through the way he kept his footing in front of the audience. His generally goodhearted nature, the finale’s tone suggested, was part of how he made the jokes land without losing the human center.

Colbert’s tenure offered too many highlights to count, but five moments stood out from the run—each revealing a different side of the show’s evolution.

The first looked like a clean line drawn from one news era to another: in 2017, when news broke of Bill O’Reilly’s ouster at Fox News, Colbert took the opportunity to permanently retire his Comedy Central alter-ego, “a thinly veiled caricature of the pugilistic cable news fixture.”

In 2019, the show leaned into its playful fandom. During Liv Tyler’s visit, Colbert—described as a huge fan of J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy series—restaged an iconic scene from the “Lord of the Rings” film series. The segment also tied to the reality of what he was building offscreen: Colbert is “currently working on an ‘LOTR’ movie script with his son.”.

That same year brought a different kind of thrill for late-night fans. In 2019, Conan—called by the writer “my favorite late-night host” and noted as a Brookline native—took over “The Late Show” temporarily.

Then came 2020, when “The Late Show” shifted into a quieter register. Joe Biden talked grief with Stephen in 2020. The segment matters because it didn’t arrive as the first time Colbert and the president had gone there: the source notes that Joe Biden first talked about the death of his son with Colbert in 2015 in another heartfelt segment. But it was the 2020 appearance—“in the throes of the pandemic”—that made the moment linger.

By 2026, the show’s farewell series found its own language of callbacks. One of the standout swan-song moments was the return of longtime CBS late-night host and “inveterate button-pusher” David Letterman. reuniting with Colbert to “once again poke and prod at the Tiffany network. ” in a moment framed as Colbert tossing furniture with Letterman.

The sequence of these segments. from O’Reilly’s ouster and the retirement of an alter-ego to Tolkien-fueled restagings. brief host swaps. grief on a pandemic night. and Letterman’s last return under the Tiffany glow. all point to the same thing: Colbert didn’t just occupy a late-night desk—he kept changing the tone of what could happen there.

The finale also came with the larger backdrop that readers have had to track over the past year: CBS’ controversial decision to permanently end “The Late Show” last summer was the reason the goodbye became permanent.

For Colbert, the last night arrived with one last familiar feeling—knowing the stage, the rhythm, and the audience were all part of the same shared moment—until Thursday night’s sendoff brought it to a close.

Stephen Colbert The Late Show CBS Paul McCartney Ed Sullivan Theater Joe Biden David Letterman Conan O'Brien Bill O'Reilly Liv Tyler