It’s the kind of twist even the sharpest late-night monologue couldn’t script: the young comic who quietly slipped out the side door of a midnight comedy show… and accidentally set off a chain reaction that ended with the king of CBS late night packing his bags.

And yet, if you believe CBS’s own executives, that’s exactly what happened.

The Night the Laughs Changed

Back in March, Taylor Tomlinson seemed to have it all. Her quick-witted stand-up style had found a new home at After Midnight, a quirky, social media–infused comedy pseudo–game show airing weeknights at 12:37 a.m. The show was finding its groove, attracting younger viewers in a late-night landscape dominated by graying demographics.

Just two months earlier, Tomlinson had been celebrating the show’s first anniversary. She’d admitted to initial doubts — “At first I was like, oh maybe I’m not good at this” — but now she was in her element. The audience was responding. Critics were warming up. And CBS had quietly greenlit a third season.

Then came the surprise. Tomlinson announced she’d be leaving the show to take her stand-up act back on the road full-time. The decision blindsided both fans and the network. Still, most assumed CBS would simply find a replacement.

They didn’t.

Instead, the network killed After Midnight altogether. No auditions. No search. Just a flatline.

The Colbert Bombshell

Fast forward four months. CBS drops a headline that detonates across the entertainment world: The Late Show with Stephen Colbert — the flagship of its late-night empire, the jewel in its ratings crown — is being canceled.

Fans were stunned. Industry insiders scrambled to find an explanation. Was it the billions-drenched merger between CBS’s parent company Paramount Global and Skydance Media? The show’s hefty losses? The political heat Colbert often attracted — including barbed insults from the president himself?

Last week, CBS finally spoke. And the reason they gave was… Taylor Tomlinson.

George Cheeks, CEO of CBS/Paramount’s TV Media division, stood at a press conference marking the Skydance deal and casually admitted that when Tomlinson walked away, CBS realized it “couldn’t stay in that daypart.”

In other words: without After Midnight, the network saw no point in keeping The Late Show either.

The Bigger Picture — Or the Stranger One

On paper, it makes no sense. The Late Show was still CBS’s top-rated late-night program. Yes, it was expensive. Yes, it was polarizing. But to cancel your star host because the midnight show’s host quit? That’s a plot twist worthy of a satire sketch.

But late night in 2025 isn’t operating in a vacuum — it’s stuck in a vortex. Audiences are shrinking, ad revenues are evaporating, and networks are increasingly hesitant to invest in political comedy when viewers seem to prefer distraction over confrontation.

Was CBS really considering swapping out Colbert’s high-cost, high-heat political act for Tomlinson’s younger-skewing, cheaper, non-political style?

Some insiders think yes. Tomlinson’s brand — personal stories, mental health openness, a dash of family humor — was tailor-made for a network tired of nightly partisan brawls. And here’s the kicker: After Midnight was produced in part by Spartina Productions, owned by Stephen Colbert himself.

So if CBS did see Tomlinson as the future, it was a future Colbert had already been helping to build.

The Butterfly Effect in Real Time

Cheeks’s more charitable reading is that if Tomlinson had stayed, CBS might have left the late-night block untouched for now. The Late Show may have been losing money, but together with After Midnight, it gave affiliates a steady two-hour block to sell local ads against. Once Tomlinson left, CBS faced the expense and risk of relaunching After Midnight — and decided to ditch late night entirely.

But perception is reality in show business. And right now, the perception is that one young comedian, barely two years into hosting, indirectly triggered the end of a three-decade late-night dynasty.

Colbert reportedly wished Tomlinson well when she left. What he didn’t know was that her departure would eventually take him down too.

The Legacy Nobody Saw Coming

For Taylor Tomlinson, this is an improbable footnote — and perhaps a burden. No comedian sets out to be remembered as “the one who toppled Colbert.” But whether she likes it or not, her name will now be linked to one of the most unexpected double-cancellations in TV history.

And for Stephen Colbert? The man who once inherited David Letterman’s desk now leaves it under the strangest of circumstances: not felled by ratings collapse or scandal, but by the quiet exit of a fellow comic he once collaborated with.

The late-night landscape will never be the same. And if CBS’s logic holds true, it was all set in motion not by a hostile takeover, political backlash, or a catastrophic ratings slide — but by one woman’s choice to tell jokes on the road instead of behind a CBS desk.

Sometimes in television, the biggest explosions start with the smallest spark.