Julia Louis-Dreyfus channeled her inner roast comic to deliver an expletive-laden takedown of Stephen Colbert, just days before his late-night departure.
Louis-Dreyfus, 65, had assembled the writing staff for Veep—her acclaimed show known for its brutal comedic insults—to roast the late-night host. The gag was a surprise parting gift for Colbert, who is a fan of the Emmy-winning show. “By the way, he does not know what I’m about to do,” she told the audience as she turned to him.
“Since I know you are a huge fan of Veep...I got some of the Veep writers together to write a Veep-style tribute to you. And I will read them as Selina Meyer, my character in Veep,” she said.
“So, we have watched you age on camera from a spunky kid on The Daily Show to a canceled old late-night host whose jowls look like the scrotum of a, well, a canceled old late-night host‚” Louis-Dreyfus quipped on The Late Show on Tuesday, which cracked Colbert up.
“I’ve been on this show multiple times, and I always thought you were Rachel Maddow. Are you not?” she continued.
“So, you’re Irish, but you decided to pronounce your name to sound French,” she said. “That’s like putting lipstick on a pig, which I understand is what Irish people do before they f--- it.”
“Sheep also,” Colbert quipped between laughs.
Louis-Dreyfus, who won the Best Actress Emmy for all but one of Veep‘s seven seasons, could not hide her delight at the vicious jokes. “When my people said I should come and say farewell to you, I was hoping it would be more of a hospice-type situation,” she joked.
“So I understand you’re an obsessive Lord of the Rings fan. Oh, that must be so much fun for your wife,” she added, putting air quotes around “wife.”
The jokes also targeted Colbert’s contentious relationship with Trump, 79, and CBS, the network that unceremoniously announced his ousting in July, days after settling a $16 million lawsuit with Trump.
“Your cancellation gave Donald Trump so much pleasure, I always think of you as the Stormy Daniels of late-night,” she said.
“I don’t want you to worry,” she continued. “The only reason everyone rallied around Jimmy Kimmel is because he’s more popular.”
“All you’ve really got to do is hold on until the corporate c-- guzzler who fires you gets fired,” she said. “And he’ll be gone as soon as he runs out of new cities for NCIS.”
Finally, Louis-Dreyfus revealed her wish for Colbert’s post-show career, before sending off the late-night host with a handshake and a kiss.
“Please, please don’t look at this as an opportunity to do Death of a Salesman,” she said, ”You have the charisma of a software update notification. You f---ing s--t sucking c---bone.”
The final episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert will air on May 21.
