{"id":907616,"date":"2026-05-22T13:17:23","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T18:17:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/22\/five-of-the-most-memorable-moments-on-the-late-show-with-stephen-colbert\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T13:17:23","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T18:17:23","slug":"five-of-the-most-memorable-moments-on-the-late-show-with-stephen-colbert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/22\/five-of-the-most-memorable-moments-on-the-late-show-with-stephen-colbert\/","title":{"rendered":"Five of the Most Memorable Moments on \u2018The Late Show With Stephen Colbert\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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It\u2019s hard to imagine a world in which Stephen Colbert isn\u2019t on the airwaves, providing a reliable and soothing dash of sanity. Just a year after his satirical political news show, The Colbert Report<\/em>, went off the air on Comedy Central, Colbert took the reins of The Late Show<\/em> from David Letterman\u2014and this Thursday, that run too comes to an end (albeit not on Colbert\u2019s terms<\/a>).<\/p>\n

In honor of the Emmy-winning show\u2019s nearly 11-year tenure\u2014a period during which Colbert and his writers managed to be thoughtful and irreverent about the news of the day without veering into preachiness\u2014we\u2019ve rounded up five of the best moments in Late Show<\/em> history, now that it\u2019s, well, history.<\/p>\n

Nick Cave speaking powerfully about grief<\/h2>\n
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Nick Cave appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert<\/em> in August 2024 to talk about his album Wild God<\/em>, but the conversation ultimately covered far greater territory. Colbert often engaged his guests on the subject of loss\u2014he having suffered the deaths of his father and two of his brothers in childhood\u2014and Cave was generous in his reflection on the deaths of two of his sons. \u201cThere is joy and there is happiness in a way you could never believe possible on the other side of grief,\u201d Cave said.<\/p>\n

Rep. John Lewis crowd-surfing<\/h2>\n
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The late civil rights activist and former US representative\u2019s record of lobbying for progressive social change speaks for itself\u2014but 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.<\/p>\n

Lady Gaga defending Dr. Christine Blasey Ford during the Kavanaugh hearings<\/h2>\n
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Almost a decade later, it\u2019s still hard to remember the Kavanaugh hearings<\/a> without shuddering, but at the time, hearing Lady Gaga defend Dr. Christine Blasey Ford as Ford accused then\u2013Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault was powerful. \u201cIf someone is assaulted or experiences trauma, there is science\u2014and scientific proof, it\u2019s biology\u2014that people change. The brain changes, and literally what it does is it takes the trauma and it puts it in a box\u2026so that we can survive the pain,\u201d Gaga said. \u201cWhen [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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Texas Rep. James Talarico sitting for an unaired interview<\/h2>\n
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Colbert\u2019s interview with Democratic Texas Senate candidate James Talarico may not have aired on CBS due to the FCC\u2019s equal-time rules, but millions of people watched the interview\u2014which delved into Talarico\u2019s devout Christianity, and the contradictions of the Religious Right\u2014on YouTube.<\/p>\n

Colbert taking on CBS<\/h2>\n
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It\u2019s not often that a late-night host takes on his own network (we all saw how that went for Hacks<\/em>\u2019s Deborah Vance<\/a>), but last July, Colbert referred to CBS\u2019s settlement of a $16 million lawsuit with President Donald Trump as a \u201cbig, fat bribe,\u201d adding: \u201cAs someone who has always been a proud employee of this network, I\u2019m offended, and I don\u2019t know if anything will ever repair my trust in this company\u2014but just taking a stab at it, I\u2019d say 16 million dollars would help.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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It\u2019s hard to imagine a world in which Stephen Colbert isn\u2019t 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\u2014and this Thursday, that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":907617,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27746,1612,104640],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-907616","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-memorable","8":"category-moments","9":"category-youtube-videos"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=907616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/907617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=907616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=907616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=907616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}