CBS

Stephen Colbert capped off his 2025 with a video appearance on CNN’s “New Year’s Eve Live” with Andy Cohen and Anderson Cooper, where the former asked the late-night host to tell viewers about the “major lesson” he learned during the year. Colbert’s 2025 was defined by CBS canceling “The Late Show.”

“So much has happened in the last year of your life,” Cohen said during the telecast in a nod to Colbert’s cancellation. “I am curious what you left last year having learned… what is the major lesson you learned? It’s not a controversial question.”

“Don’t trust billionaires,” Colbert said and then immediately started laughing. “They don’t get rich by finding that money on the side of the road, brother!”

Colbert announced in July CBS’ decision to pull “The Late Show” off the air. Network executives said the decision was “purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night,” but many in the industry figured the decision had more to do with David Ellison’s Paramount takeover. The news hit right as Ellison’s Skydance was acquiring CBS’ parent company Paramount Global. Ellison has been aligning the company more with Donald Trump, who Colbert often bashes on “The Late Show.” In fact, Colbert targeted both CBS and Trump a few days before news of his show’s cancellation when he called out Paramount for paying $16 million to Trump’s estate to settle a lawsuit with Trump over a “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris.

“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,” Colbert said on the show at the time.

David Letterman, who created “The Late Show” and hosted the program from 1993 to 2015, was one of many public figures who reasoned Colbert was being canceled due to political reasons involving Ellison taking over Paramount. He called CBS’ decision “pure cowardice” and said Ellison doesn’t “want any trouble along the lines of freedom of the press or free speech or freedom of expression. They don’t want the government going after them, because that concept of freedom of the press and freedom of speech — that’s so old-fashioned.”

In a GQ cover story published in November, Colbert was asked about his CBS show’s sudden axing shortly after he criticized Paramount‘s $16 million “60 Minutes” settlement with Trump and amid Paramount’s wait for FCC approval for its merger with Skydance. Colbert said it wasn’t unreasonable to think he was canceled for political reasons.

“My reaction as a professional in show business is to go: That is the network’s decision,” Colbert said. “I can understand why people would have that reaction because CBS or the parent corporation — I’m not going to say who made that decision, because I don’t know; no one’s ever going to tell us — decided to cut a check for $16 million to the president of the United States over a lawsuit that their own lawyers, Paramount’s own lawyers, said is completely without merit. And it is self-evident that that is damaging to the reputation of the network, the corporation, and the news division. So it is unclear to me why anyone would do that other than to curry favor with a single individual.”

Colbert added: “If people have theories that associate me with that, it’s a reasonable thing to think, because CBS or the corporation clearly did it once. But my side of the street is clean and I have no interest in picking up a broom or adding to refuse on the other side of the street. Not my problem. So people can have their theories. I have my feelings about not doing the show anymore, but you’d have to show me why that’s a fruitful relationship for me to have with my network for the next nine months, for me to engage in that speculation.”

“The Late Show” will sign off the air in May.