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“Late Show” host Stephen Colbert appeared on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” on Tuesday, where he revealed how he found out about his show’s cancelation and described the difficulty of sharing the news with his staff and audience.
Colbert told Kimmel that his manager, James Dixon, who he refers to as “Baby Face,” requested a 15-minute, in-person meeting with him after the taping of his show on Wednesday, July 16. He recalled finding the request to be suspicious, joking that a 5-minute phone call with Dixon could last an hour, so the 15-minute meeting at his office raised red flags.
“15 minutes in person? What the hell is this about?” he recalled, noting that he informed his wife that he’d be coming home late that night.
The show will go off the air next May.
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“And I come home two-and-a-half hours later. I walk into the apartment, and she goes, ‘What happened? You get canceled?’” he explained. “I said, ‘Yes, I did.’”
The “Late Show” host recalled that his manager held off on relaying the news about his show’s cancelation until he had returned from vacation in Europe, not wanting to put a damper on his trip.
After confiding in his wife, Colbert revealed that she urged him to tell his staff the very next day — something that he said he was not initially on board with.
“I said, ‘I really don’t think so. I just don’t think I’m up for it,'” he recounted telling his wife. “And then she goes, ‘I’m coming to work with you tomorrow. Because I think you’re telling your staff tomorrow.’ And we get into the building, I go up in the elevator, I walk through the offices. By the time I get to my offices, I have sweat through my shirt.”
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Colbert explained that part of the reason why he decided to tell his staff that day was because he didn’t want to have access to any information about the show that they did not. He revealed that he initially only disclosed the news to his executive producer, Tom Purcell, before taping his show that day, claiming that he didn’t want the rest of his staff to feel “bummed out.”
“So the people who work on this, a couple like ‘Baby’ knew and Carrie knew and Evie knew, but I didn’t tell anybody else on the show, and then I did the whole show, including a cold open on the show, and then when I say good night to the audience, I said, ‘OK, now nobody leaves because we’ve got one more act of the show,'” he detailed. “Because I wanted to go record at the top of the show that we had been canceled, and my stage manager goes, ‘Oh no, we’re done. Steve, we’re done.'”
Right before revealing the show’s upcoming departure to the audience, Colbert told Kimmel that he went backstage and requested his staff to join a Zoom call, where he shared the news with them.
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In CBS’s July 18 statement announcing Colbert’s show would end, the outlet said the decision was “purely” financial and “not related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount.”
Puck News reported that Colbert’s show “has been losing more than $40 million a year” for CBS and that it had a budget of “more than $100 million per season,” comparing it with CBS’ daytime and primetime programming, which were “still profitable.”
Fox News’ Rachel Del Guidice Contributed to this report.
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