After more than three decades, CBS’s The Late Show will officially come to an end on Thursday evening.
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In its final week, The Late Show featured various guests, including Jon Stewart and Steven Spielberg. Bruce Springsteen also appeared as a performer, as did Talking Heads singer David Byrne, who performed with The Late Show’s host Stephen Colbert.
Although CBS has not revealed the final guests, fans are highly anticipating that the show will go out with a bang.
The Late Show premiered in August 1993 and was hosted by David Letterman until his retirement in 2015. Colbert took over following the end of Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report and hosted the show for 11 seasons.
Unfortunately, The Late Show was officially canceled last summer amid the acquisition of CBS’s parent company, Paramount Global.
Colbert announced the news during an episode. “Before we start the show, I want to let you know something that I found out just last night,” he explained. “Next year will be our last season. The network will be ending The Late Show in May.”
As the audience booed at the news, the show’s host declared, “Yeah, I share your feelings. It’s not just the end of our show, but it’s the end of The Late Show on CBS.”
He then revealed the show would be ending altogether.
The final episode will air on May 21 at 11:35 p.m. ET.
As a move of solidarity, Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night talk shows will go dark to honor The Late Show’s final episode.
Colbert Speaks Out About ‘The Late Show’ Ending
During a recent interview with PEOPLE, Colbert reflected on his hosting duties on The Late Show for the past 11 seasons.
“I tried never to take for granted filming in the Ed Sullivan Broadway theater,” he said. “Having that tremendous audience, or having the ability to work with the funniest people I know every day and make jokes about the things that make me most anxious.”
The comedian then said he wondered if CBS “saved” his life by canceling the show. “It takes a lot of bone marrow to do the show every day,” he pointed out. “And now I’ll be stepping down with enough time, enough energy to do other things that I want to do.”
Regarding his plans for after the show ends, Colbert admitted he isn’t quite sure what the future holds.
“The show’s like a flaming toboggan ride every day, and the trick is to not hit any trees on your way down the mountain before 12:30,” he shared. “There’s so much to think about to do the show. So I don’t have much better of an answer than most college seniors do, which is I’ve got to finish this first, because it takes almost the entirety of my brain to do this show. So we’ll land this plane, and we’ll check out the view from there.”
He then added with a laugh, “But I’m available. Yes.”
Following The Late Show’s finale, Colbert will co-write a new Lord of the Rings movie with his son, Peter.