Stephen Colbert’s daughter is on to greener pastures.
Madeleine Carlisle, 30, a former associate producer at 60 Minutes and one of the former Late Show host’s three children with his wife Evelyn McGee-Colbert, is joining The Atlantic as a staff writer.
According to Carlisle’s LinkedIn page, she worked at The Atlantic as a Political Editorial Fellow from 2018 to 2019 before taking on the new role. Her return to the publication is the younger Colbert’s next move after jumping ship with several of her 60 Minutes colleagues.
Carlisle left the CBS show just months shy of four years as part of a mass exodus now that the show is being revamped in MAGA’s image under CBS News president Bari Weiss.
One such example of the legendary show’s new editorial direction is the bombshell report from Oregon Senator Ron Wyden, which alleges that a “broader segment” from 60 Minutes about major banks’ dealings with convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein was suppressed by CBS leadership.
The report follows multiple others of suppressed stories that don’t look favorably on Donald Trump or his allies, including 60 Minutes’ originally shelved segment on the Trump administration’s El Salvador megaprison for deportees.
Internal tensions reached a crescendo when veteran anchor Scott Pelley was fired in June, following a blowup with the show’s new MAGA leadership. Several more key staffers were axed in his wake. Following Anderson Cooper’s exit from the show earlier this year, Colbert’s daughter is just the latest to leave on her own volition.
As Trump-friendly company Skydance’s acquisition of Paramount included her dad’s Late Show, Carlisle’s exit makes her the second family member to leave the company amid the MAGA-inflected takeover.
The Late Show’s cancellation was announced just days after Colbert decried Paramount for “bribing” the president by settling his 60 Minutes lawsuit for $16.5 million ahead of the merger. Paramount insisted the decision was made for “purely financial reasons.”
Carlisle’s new employer sang her praises in an official announcement on Friday, touting her work with the now-fired 60 Minutes stars. “A bunch of us sensed that, sooner or later, she would be coming back to us,” wrote Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg. “Maddie was a very successful member of the 2018–19 fellowship class who went on to cover politics, law, and gender issues for Time magazine.”
“She then joined the 60 Minutes team, where she worked with correspondents Scott Pelley, Anderson Cooper, and Cecilia Vega on their stories, including one about crypto billionaire Changpeng Zhao that earned an Emmy nomination for outstanding investigative coverage.”
He added, “We’re thrilled that she’s rejoining The Atlantic.”
