Colbert, however, doesn’t want to wade into those waters himself. “My reaction as a professional in show business is to go: That is the network’s decision,” the host said in a recent interview with GQ. “I can understand why people would have that reaction because CBS or the parent corporation—I’m not going to say who made that decision, because I don’t know; no one’s ever going to tell us—decided to cut a check for $16 million to the president of the United States over a lawsuit that their own lawyers, Paramount’s own lawyers, said is completely without merit. And it is self-evident that that is damaging to the reputation of the network, the corporation, and the news division. So it is unclear to me why anyone would do that other than to curry favor with a single individual.”
“If people have theories that associate me with that, it’s a reasonable thing to think,” he continued. “But my side of the street is clean and I have no interest in picking up a broom or adding to refuse on the other side of the street. Not my problem. So people can have their theories. I have my feelings about not doing the show anymore, but you’d have to show me why that’s a fruitful relationship for me to have with my network for the next nine months, for me to engage in that speculation.”
Late Show wasn’t yanked from the schedule immediately after the announcement; Colbert will still be on-air until May 2026. In his first show following the decision, the host continued to poke fun at Paramount (“I could see us losing $24 million, but where would Paramount have possibly spent the other $16 million—oh, yeah”), but emphasized that his direct employers, CBS, “have always been great partners.” He reiterated that sentiment to GQ, emphasizing that “it’s one of the reasons why this was so surprising and so shocking that there was no preamble to this.”
“We’ve done cuts and stuff like that,” he went on. “But I meant what I said [on air] the next night after I found out, because I couldn’t sit on it. They’ve been great partners. They really have.”
