Stephen Colbert took to the stage as an Emmy presenter on Sunday night, winning a huge applause after his “Late Show” was shockingly cancelled by CBS earlier this year.
As soon as Colbert appeared on stage, the crowd rose to his feet and chanted, “Stephen! Stephen! Stephen!” Before Colbert awarded the lead actor award in the comedy series. “Does anyone hire me while I have your attention?” The late-night host joked before pulling out his resume with vintage headshots. He hoped he could soon hand his resume over to Harrison Ford and to Steven Spielberg.
Later on the TV broadcast, when “The Late Show” won an Emmy Award for his outstanding talk series, Colbert returned to the stage for an emotional victory speech. First, Colbert told CBS “I thanked us for giving us part of our late-night tradition. I hope it will last forever since we stopped doing this show.” Colbert will be holding the final episode of “The Late Show” in May 2026.
“Ten years ago, in September 2015, Spike Jonze stopped by my office and said, ‘What do you want to do with this show?’ “I don’t know how I can do that, but I want to do a late-night comedy show about love,” Colbert said. “I don’t know if I understand that, but at some point you can guess what that point is. In a way, I realized that we were doing a late-night comedy show about loss.
Colbert added: “Ten years after September 2025, my friend, I have never loved my country more desperately.
The late-night host pumped his fist into the air, holding his first primetime emmy and putting out a big “Woo!”
“Late Show with Stephen Colbert” won its first Creative Arts Emmy Award last Sunday. The award was given by outstanding directors in various series categories. The show won the first two Emmys two months after CBS announced the cancellation. The long-running franchise, which began as a “Late Show with David Letterman” in 1993 and took over by Colbert in 2015, will end in 2026.
The cancellation is not without controversy as CBS parent company Paramount was announced a few days after it settled a lawsuit with the Trump administration and subsequently merged with Skydance Media. Colbert and Trump have long been critics of each other despite the president, a guest on the 2015 show. Comedians rarely miss the opportunity to tease Trump, and the president responded with approval to cancel the show. Trump denied responsibility for Colbert’s cancellation, but he posted about the true social.
Colbert himself was nominated for 44 Primetime Emmy Awards over the course of his career, bringing back 10 for his work on the “Daily Show” and “Colbert Report.” He has also won two Grammy Awards, five Peabody Awards, seven Producer Guild Awards and four Writer Guild Awards.
