There is still a lot of incredible displeasure among fans and those in the entertainment industry over the shocking cancellation of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert that was announced during the summer (the show will continue through the end of its current season, and end sometime in May on the 2026 TV schedule). Rachel Maddow recently blasted the decision, and Colbert himself noted that he wished at least a new host was taking over instead of the program as a whole ending. Now, the host has gotten some sage advice from someone who knows what it’s like to leave a long career in late night: Conan O’Brien.
What Life Advice Did Conan O’Brien Give Stephen Colbert As The Late Show Prepares To End?
Though the final days of the 2025 TV schedule won’t bring the end of The Late Show just yet, and Stephen Colbert’s talk show is still basically killing the competition, it’s probably a good bet that the host is filled with a lot of emotions as he attempts to knock it out of the park and “land this plane.”
Even though Colbert has spent 20 years, overall, as a popular talk show host, he’s not really thinking about what will come next for his career, and went so far as comparing the end of The Late Show to a fuzzy image where he can’t tell if a man is holding out a knife or an ice cream cone for him. When speaking with Conan O’Brien at the yearly fundraiser for Montclair Film (via The Hollywood Reporter) recently, The Daily Show talent was given a great piece of advice when the former Conan host opened up about leaving his long tenure in late night behind in 2021. O’Brien said:
I ended my thing four years ago and Goddamnit I’ve had so much fun. I’ve really enjoyed myself and it was a great lesson for me. These shows are just a way for Stephen Colbert to relate to people, they are not the way. There are so many different things that you can do and that you’re going to do that are going to give you enormous amounts of pleasure, and you’re going to be really great at it.
Colbert might not quite know what the future beyond his current show holds for him right now, but O’Brien assured him that being a late night talk show host simply isn’t the only way for him to do what he loves. As he said this has just been "a way for Stephen Colbert to relate to people, they are not the way."
O’Brien, who was in late night for almost 30 years and hosted three different shows, has since gone on to start a popular podcast, and even has a travel series, Conan O’Brien Must Go, which you can watch with an HBO Max subscription.
He continued, and revealed a fun aspect of being in post-talk show host life, which Colbert will, obviously, get to one day:
You’re going to have people on the street saying, ‘Oh my God, I loved …’ and it’s going to be this other thing that you’re doing. You’re just not there yet, you haven’t begun that yet.
Colbert seems like a smart dude who thinks things through, so I doubt that he has zero non-Late Show inklings in his head, despite his very clear focus on ending the show in the most satisfying way possible. So, hopefully, he takes O’Brien’s words to heart and knows that when the time is right he’ll find a way to entertain and inform audiences all over again.