Much has been said about Stephen Colbert‘s May 21 curtain call on The Late Show. In fact, Colbert often jokes about it on air. But with less than a month to go, the late-night host sat down with the New York Times for a more serious assessment of the show’s finale.
CBS said the cancellation was “purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night” but Colbert has frequently pointed out that the verdict came two days after he called Paramount Global’s $16 million settlement of Donald Trump’s lawsuit a “big fat bribe” on the air.
Still, he told the NYT, he does not want to argue.
“I do not dispute their rationale. I do make jokes about it. But I also completely understand why people would say (A) that doesn’t make sense to me and (B) that seems fishy to me, because the network did it to themselves.”
The comedian stressed that not arguing about one point does not mean another is invalid.
“It’s possible that two things can be true. Broadcast can be in trouble. They cannot monetize because of things like YouTube, because of the competition of streaming. They’ve got the books, and I do not have any desire to debate them over what they say their business model is and how it does not work for them anymore. But less than two years before they called to say, ‘It’s over,’ they were very eager for me to be signed for a long time. So, something changed.”
And while that argument may be good fodder for comedy, Colbert said he’s not holding onto it as the show ends.
“I feel so much better to be ‘grateful for’ than to be ‘mad about’” the past 11 years on CBS.
