Colbert lashes out at CBS, says cancellation ‘reinforced a narrative’ of ‘knee bending’ to Trump

Late-night host Stephen Colbert took some parting shots at his network in an interview published Wednesday, accusing CBS of bending the knee to President Donald Trump like royal subjects.

Colbert has spoken out about his show's cancellation in multiple interviews, both on and off-air, most recently with The Hollywood Reporter in a piece headlined, "The Stephen Colbert Exit Interview: ‘I Did Not Expect It to End This Way.’"

CBS announced in July that it had canceled "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" and that it would end in May 2026. Liberal critics have accused CBS and Paramount of ending the show to appease Trump and receive approval for a long-planned merger between Paramount Global and Skydance Media.

"In the 10 months since, Colbert has not held back," The Hollywood Reporter wrote of Colbert’s reaction to the network decision, "regularly jabbing his network, its new owners’ cozy relationship with the president and reports that his show was hemorrhaging $40 million a year. Being able to be brutally honest about all of it was part of the arrangement he made with his bosses last summer. He has also continued to mercilessly critique Trump on a nightly basis."

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Colbert hinted that while there does not appear to be definitive proof that his show was canceled for political reasons, he thinks it's the most likely explanation.

Despite acknowledging the traditional broadcast model was in trouble amid a changing media landscape, he suggested: "There are many people who believe there was another reason. And, as I said in the most measured tones I could muster, there is a reason why people believe that — the network had clearly already done it once by cutting that $16 million check [to the Trump administration]."

"Me being canceled reinforced a narrative that CBS already had a nimbus of knee-bending that they had created around themselves, because even their lawyers said there was no reason to cut the check, and then they did and gave no rationale for why they changed their minds, and then suddenly they got their broadcast license," Colbert added.

"Causality is not the same thing as correlation, and I understand that," Colbert said, mocking the skepticism in the past that smoking tobacco had adverse health effects. "It can be that the broadcast model is collapsing, and, while we’re at it, as long as we’re collapsing here, what if we shove this one out a window first? I mean, this lamb’s got a very cuttable throat," he joked.

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As he did in a previous interview, Colbert criticized the fact he has been characterized as some sort of liberal partisan, despite his record of openly supporting Democrats while targeting Republicans for mockery.

"But yeah, I’m a moderate, suburban Catholic, but people perceive me as this liberal thing when in fact what presents itself as modern conservatism [today] is actually radical behavior," he argued. "I believe that what purports to be the present conservative movement is actually engaged in constant heresy against reality. Just wish-casting a world to exist that doesn’t, which is very destructive."

"That’s like alcoholism," he continued to argue. "That’s reaching for a drug that’s really a poison all the time in order to give you the worldview that you hope. And then worse than that, imposing that on other people and denying their reality."

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Fox News Digital reached out to CBS and Paramount for comment but did not immediately receive a response.