Seth Meyers is worried about his mental health if he ends up following in Stephen Colbert’s footsteps.
The late-night host said as much on the Monday episode of Armchair Expert, which was taped before the news that CBS is ending The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. But his comments couldn’t feel more relevant right now.
“I would worry about myself, like, mental health-wise,” Meyers said, after he was asked how he’d feel if his show was over tomorrow. “There is this weird thing that I feel like I shifted from fearing that I wouldn’t be good enough. And now my fear is weirdly more outside of my control, which is just at some point, the ecosystem might not support” the late-night format. “I guess that’s better than thinking it’s your fault,” he added, “But it is weird to not feel any control over it.”
The walls do seem to be closing in, with Meyers’ show as the last of it kind that still airs in the 12:35 a.m. time slot, following CBS’ cancelations of James Corden’s Late Late Show and then its much cheaper replacement, After Midnight.
Whether it be due to money or politics, Meyers said he would be most concerned about his mental health if his show ended because late-night TV is the format he “loves” most.
He’s “trying to do other things,” he said, like developing his stand-up act and focusing on his podcasts to soften the blow, but nothing so far has really compared. “I do still love late-night,” he said. “There’s a real family element to it… I have a showbiz job that feels like home. It’s the most comfortable place.”
Meyers’ comments come after Trump gloated about his “part” in Late Show’s cancelation, and his subsequent call-outs of other late nights hosts and critics Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel, who he said would be “next to go.” While many saw Colbert’s axing as politically motivated (Colbert called the company’s settlement with the president a “big, fat bribe” on air just days before), others noted the show was apparently losing CBS $40 million a year.
Though Paramount insisted that cutting the cord on Colbert was a “purely financial” decision, Trump’s online rambling cast further doubt that the CBS parent company hadn’t been trying to butter up the president just before its $8 billion merger with Skydance. Trump’s FCC gave the approval for that deal just days after the end to Late Show was announced.
The same week, Trump threatened The View over Joy Behar’s criticism of him, with a White House statement that the daytime roundtable series could be “the next show to be pulled off air.”
Meyers has not yet reached the top of Trump’s media hit list, but there’s still cause for concern, he admitted. “I do” fear that the show could be on the chopping block soon, he said, “because it is such a time we’re living in, as far as the entertainment industry.”
He continued, “This isn’t the best time to be doing what I’m doing, but at least I got in. And so I sometimes think the body of my work matters enough. The world knows Seth Meyers in a way that I’m happy with. I’ve taken my opportunity to build a thing. I know what it means, and I think other people know what it means, so I’m happy about that.”
