<\/p>\n
Stephen Colbert addressed the unexpected cancellation<\/a> of The Late Show<\/em><\/a> earlier this year, declining to say whether he thinks CBS axed the show due to political pressure<\/a> from the Trump administration, but saying otherwise: \u201cIt\u2019s a reasonable thing to think.\u201d<\/p>\n The new GQ<\/a> <\/em>cover story marks one of his first major press interviews since CBS canceled The Late Show <\/em>in July. While the network cited financial issues, there was much speculation about political pressure<\/a> as CBS\u2019 parent company, Paramount, was then looking to complete a merger with Skydance Media that needed government approval (which it eventually received). Colbert, of course, spent years skewering Trump on The Late Show <\/em>and, just two days before his cancellation, joked that there was<\/a> a \u201ctechnical name in legal circles\u201d for CBS\u2019 controversial $16 million settlement<\/a> with Trump over a dubious defamation<\/a> suit: \u201cBig fat bribe.\u201d<\/p>\n More from Rolling Stone<\/strong><\/p>\n Asked about the sequence of events and the ultimate decision, Colbert remained pointedly diplomatic, though definitely still blunt: \u201cMy reaction as a professional in show business is to go: That is the network\u2019s decision.\u201d<\/p>\n Still, Colbert didn\u2019t shy from validating those who tied the cancellation to political pressure. \u201cI can understand why people would have that reaction because CBS or the parent corporation \u2014 I\u2019m not going to say who made that decision, because I don\u2019t know; no one\u2019s ever going to tell us \u2014 decided to cut a check for $16 million to the president of the United States over a lawsuit that their own lawyers, Paramount\u2019s own lawyers, said is completely without merit,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd it is self-evident that that is damaging to the reputation of the network, the corporation, and the news division. So it is unclear to me why anyone would do that other than to curry favor with a single individual. If people have theories that associate me with that, it\u2019s a reasonable thing to think, because CBS or the corporation clearly did it once.\u201d<\/p>\n Colbert went on to explain, somewhat, why he was choosing his words so carefully. He still has several months left at the helm of\u00a0The Late Show\u00a0<\/em>(it\u2019s scheduled to end in May 2026), and he naturally seemed averse to muddying his relationship with CBS, which he otherwise described as \u201cgreat.\u201d<\/p>\n But, Colbert added, that\u2019s exactly why the network\u2019s decision was so \u201cshocking,\u201d especially after the show had looked at its budgets and made cuts to it.\u00a0All the while remaining the number one show in late-night.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m in show business. I want to do a good job for the network, and I\u2019m really proud that we could do that for them,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd that only made our relationship better. Why do you want to be number one? To brag? No \u2026 The best reason to be number one is that the network does not fuck with you. That is the best reason to be number one. And we enjoyed nine unfucked years.\u201d<\/p>\n Best of Rolling Stone<\/strong><\/p>\n Sign up for RollingStone’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/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.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Stephen Colbert addressed the unexpected cancellation of The Late Show earlier this year, declining to say whether he thinks CBS axed the show due to political pressure from the Trump administration, but saying otherwise: \u201cIt\u2019s a reasonable thing to think.\u201d The new GQ cover story marks one of his first major press interviews since CBS […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2132545,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[405812,22653],"class_list":["post-2132544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-political-pressure","tag-stephen-colbert"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Stephen-Colbert-Says-Its-\u2018Reasonable-for-People-to-Think-CBS.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2132544","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=2132544"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2132544\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2132546,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2132544\/revisions\/2132546"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2132545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2132544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2132544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2132544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}