Seth Meyers opened up about his fellow late-night colleague Stephen Colbert’s unceremonious ousting on the eve of his final episode.
“I’m heartbroken,” the Late Night with Seth Meyers host told Deadline in Madrid on Wednesday. “It’s very sad to lose a colleague and even sadder to lose a time slot.”
“It would be one thing if Stephen was leaving and a younger person was getting a chance to have one of these jobs that are — as someone who’s experienced it — so exciting to have," the late-night host continued. “So just in general, I think it’s a very sad week for television in America.”
Thursday marks the final episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert after CBS announced the program’s cancellation last July, citing it as “purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night.”
“It is not related in any way to the show’s performance, content, or other matters happening at Paramount,” they added.
However, the announcement came only days after Colbert, 62, called out CBS parent company Paramount’s “big, fat bribe” over its $16 million settlement with President Donald Trump.
“As someone who has always been a proud employee of this network, I’m offended, and I don’t know if anything will ever repair my trust in this company,” he said at the time. “I believe this kind of complicated financial settlement with a sitting government official has a technical name in legal circles: it’s Big Fat Bribe.”
In The Late Show‘s absence, Comics Unleashed with Byron Allen will occupy the 11:35 p.m. time slot on a temporary basis, operating on a time-buy model.
Colbert told People on Tuesday that after his final episode wraps, he will attend his son’s graduation and his brother’s wedding.
“The next day, focus is not on me, focus is on my brother. So much better,” he told the outlet. “We’ll get drunk, and we’ll sing on the dance floor. It’ll be great.”
He hasn’t shared much about his post-Late Show plans, other than announcing that he is writing the script for an upcoming Lord of the Rings film, tentatively titled The Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past.
“I’m also very optimistic that Stephen’s next chapter is going to be exciting for him and for the rest of us,” Meyers added on Wednesday. “I think he’s been slow-playing this as what his next step was going to be for years, and I’m very excited it’s going to happen.”
