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When is Stephen Colbert's last show? 'The Late Show' gears up with star-studded guest list for farewell run

Stephen Colbert's late-night show enters its final stretch of episodes after CBS canceled the talk show; however, it will go out with a bang.

Late Nights will no longer be the same in the US. After around three decades on air, 'The Late Show' is coming to an end, according to Yahoo Entertainment. The CBS talk show, currently hosted by Stephen Colbert, will reportedly breathe its last on Thursday, May 21. The network has kept the finale details under wraps, but the guest list for upcoming episodes has been released. However, Sally Field, John Krasinski, and Evie McGee, Stephen Colbert's wife, will grace the couch in the show's last stretch. The network canceled the franchise last year, citing financial issues in 2025. "It's not just the end of our show, it's the end of The Late Show on CBS," Colbert told viewers in his show after cancellation. "I'm not being replaced. This is all just going away."

The last few weeks have been nothing short of an epic farewell. Icons like Oprah Winfrey and Meryl Streep have arrived in the Ed Sullivan Theater in New York City to help the legendary late-night host close this chapter. The show was on a break during the week starting from April 27, but fresh episodes started airing on Monday and will hopefully continue until the finale. Filmmaker Christopher Nolan and musician Dave Grohl also featured as guests in the comeback episode. During the Tuesday episode, Colbert's pre-taped interview with former President Barack Obama was aired. In the episode, the former President advised Colbert to run for President. "Let me put it this way, I think that you could perform significantly better than some folks that we've seen," Obama explained. 

The cancellation came as a surprise to the industry. According to Nielsen Ratings Data, 'The Late Show with Stephen Colbert' is the most-watched late-night show, averaging more than 2.7 million viewers. The show also won its first  Emmy Award for Outstanding Variety Talk Series. It was rumored that the cancellation was a consequence of Colbert's critical attitude towards the Trump administration and CBS' parent company, Paramount. Just before the cancellation news became public, Colbert called Pramount's $16 million settlement with Trump a "big fat bribe." The settlement was done in response to claims by the President that '60 Minutes' unfairly edited Kamala Harris' interview during the 2024 campaign. A few weeks after the settlement, the Federal Communications Commission approved Paramount's $8 billion merger with Skydance Media. 

CBS categorically rejected the allegation, claiming that the cancellation was "not related in any way to the show’s performance, content, or other matters happening at Paramount." Colbert neither denied nor confirmed the speculations. In his interview with The New York Times, he shared, "It’s possible that two things can be true. Broadcast can be in trouble… 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." Trump, on his part, expressed happiness at the show's cancellation on social media.

Trump might be against him, but other talk show hosts are backing Colbert. His predecessor, David Letterman, criticized the network's cowardice, saying, “I’m just going to go on record as saying: They’re lying,” Letterman said. “They’re lying weasels.” In the July 21, 2025, episode of the CBS late-night talk show, John Oliver, Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers, and Jon Stewart appeared in the audience to express solidarity.