<\/p>\n
Stephen Colbert<\/a><\/strong> made a surprise return to television just 24 hours after ending The Late Show with Stephen Colbert<\/em>.<\/p>\n Hours after his final episode at the Ed Sullivan Theater, Colbert appeared as a guest host on Only in Monroe<\/em>, a public access program based in Monroe, Mich.<\/p>\n Explaining his appearance at the start of the episode, Colbert said, \u201cSince I was last here in Monroe, Michigan, I spent 11 years as the primary host of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert<\/em> on CBS, which came to an end last night. It\u2019s been an excruciating 23 hours without being on TV, so I am grateful to be able to be here on Monroe Community Media before they also get acquired by Paramount.\u201d<\/p>\n He also joked about the reach of public access television. \u201cViewers outside the greater Monroe area are able to view Monroe Community Media thanks to something known as streaming, which I promised not to learn about while I was on CBS,\u201d he quipped. \u201cAnd evidently, CBS also decided not to learn about it.\u201d<\/p>\n Colbert hinted at the appearance during his final Late Show<\/em> monologue on Thursday, May 21.<\/p>\n \u201cTechnically, our first show back in July of 2015 was from a public access station in Monroe, Michigan, for an audience of 12 people,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd show business being what it is these days, it\u2019s probably where you\u2019ll see me next.\u201d<\/p>\n The appearance marked Colbert\u2019s second time hosting Only in Monroe<\/em>. He previously appeared on the show in 2015 before succeeding David Letterman<\/strong> on CBS. The two appearances \u2014 one before his CBS run and one immediately after it ended \u2014 gave the moment a full-circle feel.<\/p>\n The hour-long broadcast featured several celebrity appearances. Jack White<\/strong> appeared as the episode\u2019s deadpan DJ, Steve Buscemi<\/strong> delivered a mock public service announcement for Buscemi\u2019s Pizza, Jeff Daniels<\/strong> prepared Colbert his famous sandwich, and Eminem<\/a><\/strong> appeared as the \u201cfire marshal\u201d approving the cast\u2019s decision to burn the remains of the studio set at the end of the show.<\/p>\n The public access series is hosted by Michelle Baumann<\/strong> and Kaye Lani Rae Rafko Wilson<\/strong>. The hosts joined Colbert in drinking shots of Cain & Grain whiskey from River Raisin Distillery in Manchester.<\/p>\n The top-rated late-night show reportedly learned of its cancelation last summer, shortly after Paramount settled a lawsuit with President Donald Trump<\/a><\/strong> over edits to a 60 Minutes<\/em> interview with then-Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n In a monologue, Colbert called the settlement \u201ca big fat bribe,\u201d referencing Paramount\u2019s pending merger with Skydance Media, which required approval from the Trump administration.<\/p>\n Paramount Global said the cancelation was \u201cpurely a financial decision,\u201d citing challenges in the late-night television market and insisting it was unrelated to ratings, content or \u201cother matters happening at Paramount.\u201d<\/p>\n The move nevertheless sparked backlash, with critics accusing the company of attempting to appease the Trump administration during the Paramount-Skydance merger, which has since been completed.<\/p>\n Colbert has repeatedly rejected claims he was \u201cfired,\u201d noting CBS decided to end the franchise rather than replace him. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter<\/em>, he said he \u201cdid not expect it to end this way,\u201d though he likely would have handled the final episodes similarly regardless of timing.<\/p>\n He joked that if he had ended the show himself, \u201cI\u2019m the bad guy,\u201d adding that CBS\u2019 decision allowed him to approach the finale with humor rather than sentimentality.<\/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 made a surprise return to television just 24 hours after ending The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Hours after his final episode at the Ed Sullivan Theater, Colbert appeared as a guest host on Only in Monroe, a public access program based in Monroe, Mich. Explaining his appearance at the start of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2431748,"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":[373185,350859,427204],"class_list":["post-2431747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-colbert","tag-michigan","tag-monroe"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Stephen-Colbert-makes-surprise-return-to-TV-hours-after-his.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2431747","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=2431747"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2431747\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2431749,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2431747\/revisions\/2431749"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2431748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2431747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2431747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2431747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}He hinted at the return<\/h2>\n
What happened in the Only in Monroe episode?<\/h2>\n
Why did The Late Show end?<\/h2>\n