It’s hard to imagine a world in which Stephen Colbert isn’t on the airwaves, providing a reliable and soothing dash of sanity. Just a year after his satirical political news show, The Colbert Report, went off the air on Comedy Central, Colbert took the reins of The Late Show from David Letterman—and this Thursday, that run too comes to an end (albeit not on Colbert’s terms).
In honor of the Emmy-winning show’s nearly 11-year tenure—a period during which Colbert and his writers managed to be thoughtful and irreverent about the news of the day without veering into preachiness—we’ve rounded up five of the best moments in Late Show history, now that it’s, well, history.
Nick Cave speaking powerfully about grief
Nick Cave appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in August 2024 to talk about his album Wild God, but the conversation ultimately covered far greater territory. Colbert often engaged his guests on the subject of loss—he having suffered the deaths of his father and two of his brothers in childhood—and Cave was generous in his reflection on the deaths of two of his sons. “There is joy and there is happiness in a way you could never believe possible on the other side of grief,” Cave said.
Rep. John Lewis crowd-surfing
The late civil rights activist and former US representative’s record of lobbying for progressive social change speaks for itself—but seeing him enjoy a bit of crowd-surfing after his sit-down with Colbert in 2016 brought a lovely sense of levity to his towering legacy.
Lady Gaga defending Dr. Christine Blasey Ford during the Kavanaugh hearings
Almost a decade later, it’s still hard to remember the Kavanaugh hearings without shuddering, but at the time, hearing Lady Gaga defend Dr. Christine Blasey Ford as Ford accused then–Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault was powerful. “If someone is assaulted or experiences trauma, there is science—and scientific proof, it’s biology—that people change. The brain changes, and literally what it does is it takes the trauma and it puts it in a box…so that we can survive the pain,” Gaga said. “When [Dr. Ford] saw that Judge Kavanaugh was going to be possibly put in the highest position of power in the judicial system of this country, she was triggered, and that box opened, and when that box opened she was brave enough to share it with the world to protect this country.”
Texas Rep. James Talarico sitting for an unaired interview
Colbert’s interview with Democratic Texas Senate candidate James Talarico may not have aired on CBS due to the FCC’s equal-time rules, but millions of people watched the interview—which delved into Talarico’s devout Christianity, and the contradictions of the Religious Right—on YouTube.
Colbert taking on CBS
It’s not often that a late-night host takes on his own network (we all saw how that went for Hacks’s Deborah Vance), but last July, Colbert referred to CBS’s settlement of a $16 million lawsuit with President Donald Trump as a “big, fat bribe,” adding: “As someone who has always been a proud employee of this network, I’m offended, and I don’t know if anything will ever repair my trust in this company—but just taking a stab at it, I’d say 16 million dollars would help.”