{"id":2427983,"date":"2026-05-22T12:59:49","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T12:59:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2427983"},"modified":"2026-05-22T12:59:49","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T12:59:49","slug":"paul-mccartney-turns-lights-out-in-ed-sullivan-theater-for-colbert-finale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/paul-mccartney-turns-lights-out-in-ed-sullivan-theater-for-colbert-finale\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul McCartney Turns Lights Out in Ed Sullivan Theater for Colbert Finale"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n\tPaul McCartney<\/a>, a surprise guest on the final episode of \u201cThe Late Show With Stephen Colbert<\/a>,\u201d provided a poignant capper to the series by being given the ceremonial honor of turning out the lights in the Ed Sullivan Theater, a location with which he has plenty of history.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe final number had McCartney and Colbert singing the Beatles<\/a>\u2018 classic \u201cHello Goodbye,\u201d accompanied by Elvis Costello, former band leader Jon Batiste and current band leader Louis Cato, eventually joined on stage by a parade of staffers dancing through and around the stag in a line, as the house band finally gave the \u201960s tune a New Orleans-style coda.<\/p>\n

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\n\tThen Colbert was seen in a filmed bit taking McCartney backstage to the electrical breakers, where the legendary rocker was seen flipping a switch that not only turned the lights out but sent the Sullivan Theater into a green interdimensional portal introduced earlier in the show by Neil deGrasse Tyson.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe symbolic gesture followed McCartney\u2019s stint as the show\u2019s final interviewee as well as last musical performer, in which the host asked him to share stories about his first visit to the theater 62 years ago.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHello Goodbye\u201d was not the only musical number toward the end of the extended final telecast. In another filmed segment, Colbert was joined by Costello and Batiste for a seated rendering of a song that was surely unfamiliar to 99% of the viewing audience: \u201cJump Up,\u201d a bluesy song Costello wrote in the mid-1970s that was not released until decades later, as a demo included as a bonus track on a \u201cMy Aim Is True\u201d deluxe edition. <\/p>\n

\n\tColbert asked McCartney for recollections about the Beatles\u2019 visit to the theater. \u201cWe\u2019d never been to America; we come here and people said this is the biggest show,\u201d the musician recalled. \u201cTo tell the truth, we\u2019d never heard of it. You know, England,\u201d he added, to explain their ignorance of the top-rated U.S. variety show. \u201cIt was fantastic\u2026 You had to go a few floors down to get makeup\u2026 We went down there and the girls put makeup on us and it was, like, bright orange.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThat\u2019s very popular in certain circles these days,\u201d responded Colbert, in one of the few references to Donald Trump in an episode that otherwise skewed surprisingly non-political. \u201cNow we know where it started. Thanks a lot, Paul McCartney,\u201d he quipped. <\/p>\n

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\n\tThe Beatles\u2019 appearance on \u201cThe Ed Sullivan Show\u201d on Feb. 9, 1964 is often credited as being the turning point that helped push the already fast-rising group over the top toward ultimately becoming the most successful group in music history. This crux point for Beatlemania was viewed by a reported 73 million viewers, or about half of the U.S. population at the time.<\/p>\n

\n\tColbert asked McCartney whether he and his fellow Beatles were nervous coming onto the Sullivan show. \u201cWe were a little bit nervous, but we\u2019re young kids and we\u2019re sort of full of ourselves,\u201d McCartney responded, suggesting they were more cocky than anxious. \u201cIt was very exciting. America\u2019s where all the music we loved came from \u2014 rock \u2018n\u2019 roll, the blues and the whole thing, even going back to Fred Astaire.\u201d He suddenly waxed patriotic. \u201cThe land of the free; the greatest democracy.\u201d Although the audience may have been expecting the host to jump in with a joke, he respectfully refrained. Added McCartney: \u201cThat was what it was, and still is, hopefully.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\tColbert\u2019s final show mostly stayed away from politics, with even the opening monologue tending toward less pointed jokes about whimsical subjects like potholes on an airport runway, as if the host was intent on not going out on an adversarial note.<\/p>\n

\n\tA virtual platoon of celebrity guests popped up during the evening, many of them standing from the audience to deliver jokes about how they expected to be the final guest, including Bryan Cranston, Paul Rudd, Ryan Reynolds, Tim Meadows and Tig Notaro. Then Colbert made a joke of introducing Pope Leo as the final guest, portrayed as refusing to come out of his dressing room, before the real guest came out for an interview that extended across commercial breaks. <\/p>\n

\n\tMcCartney then took a break while Colbert said he needed to go backstage to check out a mysterious green light and hum. There, he found the supposed wormhole, with deGrasse Tyson explaining the physics before he got sucked in \u2014 followed by a reappearance of fellow late-night hosts Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers and John Oliver, who had all come on the show live the previous week. They explained that the metaphorical hole would eventually be coming for them, too, but the canceled Colbert had to go first. Elijah Wood also appeared for a one-second cameo\/reaction shot when a disparaging \u201cLord of the Rings\u201d reference came up.<\/p>\n

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\n\tNo guest had been announced in advance for Colbert\u2019s final show, although rumors ran rampant it would be McCartney, whose new album, \u201cThe Boys of Dungeon Lane,\u201d comes out May 29. McCartney appeared on \u201cSaturday Night Live\u201d last weekend to perform the single \u201cDays We Left Behind,\u201d along with post-Beatles golden oldies \u201cBand on the Run\u201d and \u201cComing Up.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMcCartney had occasionally revisited the Ed Sullivan Theater in the 62 years since the Beatles\u2019 history-making performance there. On July 15, 2009, he and his band played atop the marquee for an episode of David Letterman\u2019s show. After Colbert took over the show from the retiring Letterman, McCartney came by for an interview to promote his children\u2019s book in 2019.<\/p>\n

\n\tMcCartney\u2019s history with Colbert outside of the CBS show dates back to when he did an hour-long interview and performance with the host for his Comedy Central series \u201cThe Colbert Show\u201d in 2013.<\/p>\n

\n\tCBS has announced earlier in the week that the \u201cLate Show\u201d finale would go overtime and not be confined to its usual one-hour time slot. There was precedent for that, with David Letterman\u2019s farewell to the show in 2015 going 17 minutes overtime. Thursday night\u2019s \u201cLate Show\u201d finale went just slightly over that, ending at 12:54 p.m. ET.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhether the Ed Sullivan Theater will remain dark for long or indefinitely is unknown, with CBS not having announced any future plans for the venue, but no longer having a late-night franchise that requires one. Its historical landmark designation requires it remain in use as a theater, although that could mean continued tapings or a transition back to a legit house.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt opened as Hammerstein\u2019s Theatre in 1927 and operated as a Broadway house for nine years. It was subsequently renamed the Manhattan Theatre, and then Billy Rose\u2019s Music Hall. In 1936 it became a CBS Radio soundstage, transitioning into use as a TV studio in 1948. After hosting Arthur Godfrey\u2019s and Jackie Gleason\u2019s shows, it became the home of Ed Sullivan in 1953, though it was known as Studio 50 until it was officially renamed the Ed Sullivan Theater in 1967. The venue was often dark after he left the air in 1971, but received intermittent filming use before and after it was landmarked in 1988. Letterman moved in and the theater began getting daily use again in 1993, at which point CBS bought the house it had long rented.<\/p>\n

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\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 variety.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Paul McCartney, a surprise guest on the final episode of \u201cThe Late Show With Stephen Colbert,\u201d provided a poignant capper to the series by being given the ceremonial honor of turning out the lights in the Ed Sullivan Theater, a location with which he has plenty of history. The final number had McCartney and Colbert […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2427984,"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":[25179],"tags":[25403,22653,32894,338310],"class_list":["post-2427983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","tag-paul-mccartney","tag-stephen-colbert","tag-the-beatles","tag-the-late-show-with-stephen-colbert"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Paul-McCartney-Turns-Lights-Out-in-Ed-Sullivan-Theater-for.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2427983","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=2427983"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2427983\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2427985,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2427983\/revisions\/2427985"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2427984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2427983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2427983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2427983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}