U.S. President Donald Trump called late-night host Stephen Colbert “no talent” after the final broadcast of The Late Show aired on Thursday night.
“Colbert is finally finished at CBS. Amazing that he lasted so long!” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Thursday night. “No talent, no ratings, no life. He was like a dead person. You could take any person off of the street and they would be better than this total jerk. Thank goodness he’s finally gone!”
In a followup post on Friday, Trump said Colbert’s “firing from CBS was the ‘Beginning of the End’ for untalented, nasty, highly overpaid, not funny, and very poorly rated Late Television Hosts.”
“Others, of even less talent, to soon follow. May they all Rest in Peace,” Trump added.
Earlier on Thursday, White House spokesperson Davis Ingle told Global News that Colbert “is a pathetic trainwreck with no talent and terrible ratings, which is exactly why CBS cancelled his show and is booting him off the airwaves.”
During Colbert’s final episode of The Late Show, he did not mention Trump’s name once and the show took a non-political route, with the 62-year-old comic celebrating his 11 seasons instead.
At the top of his last show, Colbert highlighted the “joy” he and his team felt creating more than 1,800 episodes of The Late Show.
“The energy that you’ve given us, we sincerely need that to have done the best possible show we could have for you for the last 11 years,” Colbert said. “You’ve given it to us. We’ve given it all right back to you.”
For his final interview on the farewell episode, Colbert was joined by Beatles singer Paul McCartney, who spoke about his first time on U.S. television at the Ed Sullivan Theater, where The Late Show is filmed.
“What do you remember about February of ’64?” Colbert asked McCartney.
“Well, we’d never been to America. We’d come here and people said this was the biggest show, and to tell you the truth, we’d never heard of it,” McCartney replied.
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“We came here and you have to go a few floors down to get to makeup,” McCartney continued. “We went down there and the girls put makeup on us, and it was, like, bright orange.”
“That’s very popular in certain circles these days. You’d fit nicely in,” Colbert said.
Colbert asked McCartney if he and the other members of the Beatles were nervous coming on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964.
“We were a little bit nervous, but we’re young kids and we’re sort of full of ourselves,” McCartney responded. “It was very exciting. America’s where all the music we loved came from — rock ‘n’ roll, the blues and the whole thing, even going back to Fred Astaire.”
McCartney also gifted Colbert a framed photo of the Beatles onstage during their first performance at the Ed Sullivan Theater.
McCartney and Colbert closed out his final show by singing the Beatles’ Hello Goodbye, accompanied by Elvis Costello, band leader Louis Cato and former band leader Jon Batiste.
Thursday night’s episode was also full of surprise cameos from Ryan Reynolds, Paul Rudd, Bryan Cranston, Andy Cohen, Tim Meadows and more.
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During the farewell episode, Colbert encountered an interdimensional wormhole that astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson helpfully explained was opened because a top-rated show could also have been cancelled.
Jon Stewart made an appearance, explaining the wormhole was a metaphor, and Colbert reunited with his fellow late-night hosts Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, John Oliver and Seth Meyers.
“We came to say we’re going to miss you. Late night is not going to be the same without you,” Kimmel told Colbert.
Kimmel announced “a quick programming note” during Wednesday’s episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live!
Kimmel said his show would go dark on Thursday “out of respect for our colleague and friend, Stephen Colbert, and the writers, producers, staff and crew at The Late Show, whose final show on CBS airs opposite ours.”
Fallon closed Wednesday’s Tonight Show with a message to Colbert, saying, “Stephen, have a great show tomorrow. We’ll be watching. Good night, everybody.”
On Wednesday night, David Letterman, who hosted The Late Show from 1993 until 2015, joined Colbert on the roof of the theatre to hurl furniture from the set — a nod to one of Letterman’s classic stunts.
Letterman also spoke about the end of the series, calling it a “huge mistake.”
He shared his thoughts on the Today show and said the show’s cancellation “kind of makes me sad.”
“We always relied on, you would read the newspaper in the morning, and at night you would see Johnny Carson. And Johnny would give you a perspective, whether you agreed with it or not, but it was always funny,” he said.
“And without that, I think we’re losing a valuable perspective. I think it’s very, very important to the American culture.”
“I think it’s too bad that Stephen is gone,” Letterman told Today co-anchor Craig Melvin. “I think it’s a huge mistake.”
Colbert shared the news of The Late Show’s cancellation with his audience last July, saying he learned that after a decade on air, “next year will be our last season.”
“The network will be ending The Late Show in May,” Colbert said as the crowd erupted in boos. “Yeah, I share your feelings. It’s not just the end of our show but it’s the end of The Late Show on CBS.”
Colbert said he was not being replaced as host and that the entire show “is just going away.”
— with files from The Associated Press
