<\/p>\n
Jon Batiste<\/a>, the former bandleader on \u201cThe Late Show with Stephen Colbert<\/a>,\u201d said the now-canceled host will land in a gig where free speech will reign.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cWhat happened to my friend Stephen is a symptom of big money,\u201d Batiste told Rolling Stone Australia <\/a>in a video shared Monday. (Watch it below.)<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI think where he goes next, his voice won\u2019t be silenced,\u201d the Grammy- and Oscar-winning musician said. \u201cThe voice of free speech is challenge, but the soul of an individual cannot be canceled. He\u2019s gonna find another megaphone, another outlet, I\u2019m sure of it. I\u2019m rooting for him.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Batiste, who left the show in 2022<\/a>, was likely taking shots at CBS and parent company Paramount for axing the show last month. It will go dark in May 2026 and will not return due to financial reasons, the network announced last month.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n But the circumstances were fishy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Colbert had just accused his employer of \u201ca big fat bribe<\/a>\u201d for forking over a $16 million settlement to President Donald Trump<\/a> that appeared to grease the skids for Paramount\u2019s eventual merger<\/a> with Skydance Media. The merger required the Trump administration\u2019s approval. Moreover, Colbert has been an outspoken thorn in Trump\u2019s side over his political career.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Batiste, however, wasn\u2019t celebrating.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cWe\u2019re in a time where the right price can silence the voice of free speech, which we should be very, very conscious of,\u201d he said. \u201cAs artists, we have to constantly fight for free speech and fight for the ability to be able to share the authentic truth of our being.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.celebrity.land \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Jon Batiste, the former bandleader on \u201cThe Late Show with Stephen Colbert,\u201d said the now-canceled host will land in a gig where free speech will reign. \u201cWhat happened to my friend Stephen is a symptom of big money,\u201d Batiste told Rolling Stone Australia in a video shared Monday. (Watch it below.) \u201cI think where he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1955168,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25174],"tags":[308761,22653],"class_list":["post-1955167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gossip","tag-jon-batiste","tag-stephen-colbert"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Jon-Batiste-Predicts-What-Will-Happen-To-Stephen-Colbert-Where.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1955167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1955167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1955167\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1955168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1955167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1955167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1955167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}