Stephen Colbert Explains Why He Didn’t Learn About The Late Show Cancellation Until a Week Later: “He Didn’t Want to Ruin My Vacation”

Stephen Colbert had no idea his show was being canceled—at least not right away.

Appearing on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on September 30, the 61-year-old host of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert revealed that his longtime manager didn’t immediately tell him that CBS had decided to cancel the show after 10 seasons. The reason? He didn’t want to spoil Colbert’s summer vacation.

At the time the news broke internally in July, Colbert was vacationing when his manager, James “Baby Doll” Dixon—who also manages Jimmy Kimmel—received word about the network’s decision.

“He said, ‘I just need to talk to you for 15 minutes after the show.’ This was on Wednesday, July 16th,” Colbert recalled. “Five minutes on the phone with Baby Doll feels like an hour, so 15 minutes in person? I knew something was up. I told my wife, Evelyn, ‘I’ll be home a little late, Baby wants to talk for 15 minutes.’ And I came back two and a half hours later.”

“When I walked into the apartment, she said, ‘What happened? You got canceled?’ And I said, ‘Yes, I did.’”

Kimmel, 57, asked if their mutual manager had known for a full week while Colbert was away. “Something like that,” Colbert said. “He didn’t want to ruin my vacation. They told me a couple days before I got home.”

Colbert was completely off the grid at the time. “I was far out at sea, drowning my entire life in spanakopita and Greek rosé. It was fantastic.”

Initially, Colbert considered waiting until September—after the summer break—to inform his staff. But it was his wife who urged him to share the news sooner. “She said, ‘I’m coming to work with you tomorrow because I think you’re telling your staff tomorrow,’” Colbert said. “When we got to the building, I took the elevator, walked through the offices, and by the time I reached mine, I had sweat through my shirt.”

“I didn’t want to know something my staff didn’t know. So I decided, ‘I’m telling them today.’”

However, he realized that if he told everyone on the team, they wouldn’t be able to tape that night’s show due to the mood. So instead, he confided in just a few people, including his executive producer, Tom Purcell.

Colbert eventually made the announcement during the July 17 episode of The Late Show. Before going on stage, he told his team via Zoom, and then addressed the live studio audience at the Ed Sullivan Theater.

“I told the stage manager there was ‘one more act of the show,’ then went backstage and told the staff. After that, I spoke to the audience off the cuff,” Colbert said, admitting he had to restart a few times because the crowd thought it was a comedy bit.

“It wasn’t until I got to the actual sentence that explained what was happening that they stopped laughing,” he said.

Colbert and Kimmel’s appearance on each other’s shows came just one week after Jimmy Kimmel Live! returned from an indefinite hiatus, and about two months after Colbert announced that The Late Show would be ending in May 2025. At the time, Colbert told viewers he had just learned the news the night before.

CBS later told PEOPLE that the cancellation was “purely a financial decision made in the challenging landscape of late-night television.”

The announcement followed Colbert’s public criticism of CBS’s parent company, Paramount, for its $16 million legal settlement with former President Donald Trump, which had been finalized on July 3. The settlement occurred amid Paramount’s ongoing merger with Skydance—a deal requiring approval from the Trump administration, which closed on August 7.

Following the news, Kimmel posted on Instagram Stories: “Love you Stephen. F— CBS and all your Sheldons.” He also bought a billboard in Los Angeles encouraging Emmy voters to support The Late Show in the Outstanding Talk Series category—a campaign that paid off, as the show took home the Emmy on September 14.