Colbert shared on ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ on Sept. 30 that he was “far out at sea” when it all went down

Stephen Colbert appears on ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ on Sept. 30, 2025.Credit : Jimmy Kimmel Live/YouTube

Stephen Colbert didn’t know his show was ending right away.

The Late Show with Stephen Colbert host, 61, revealed on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Tuesday, Sept. 30 that his manager did not immediately inform him that his CBS late-night show would be ending after 10 seasons when learning of the news in July.

At the time, Colbert was on vacation enjoying his summer break when James “Baby Doll” Dixon — the manager of both himself and Jimmy Kimmel — found out The Late Show was ending.

“He said, ‘I just need to talk to you for 15 minutes after the show.’ On Wednesday, this was 16th of July … Five minutes on the phone with Baby Doll is an hour, so 15 minutes in person, what the hell is this about? So I said to [wife Evelyn McGee-Colbert], ‘Hey, I’ll be home a little bit later, I gotta talk to Baby, he wants to talk for 15 minutes.’ And I come home two-and-a-half hours later,” Colbert said.

“I walk in the apartment and she goes, ‘What happened, you get cancelled?’ I said, ‘Yes I did.’”

Kimmel, 57, then asked Colbert if their shared manager “knew for a week” while Colbert was on vacation. “Something like that,” Colbert clarified.

“He didn’t want to ruin my vacation because they told me a couple days before I got home,” he added, noting that he was “far out at sea” when it all went down. “I was drowning my entire life in spanakopita and Greek rosé, it was fantastic.”

Stephen Colbert.

Scott Kowalchyk/CBS via Getty

Colbert, who considered telling his staff “after the summer break” around September, said his wife is the one who encouraged him to inform his staff the next day. “And then she goes, ‘I’m coming to work with you tomorrow, because I think you’re telling your staff tomorrow.’ And we get into the building, I go up the elevator, I walk through the offices. By the time I get to my offices, I have sweat through my shirt,” Colbert said. “Because I didn’t want to know anything my staff didn’t know. I said, ‘I’m gonna tell my staff today.’”

“But then we couldn’t do a show if I told them because everybody would be bummed out, so I only told my executive producer, Tom Purcell,” he added, clarifying that a few people knew but he “didn’t tell anybody else on the show.”

Colbert eventually broke the news on the July 17 episode of The Late Show, telling his staff privately beforehand. He told his stage manager there was “one more act of the show,” for the audience at the Ed Sullivan Theater in New York City. He then went backstage, told his staff over Zoom and spoke “off the cuff” to the live audience — having to restart a few times. The audience “thought it was a bit” at first, he added.

“And then, I got to the sentence that actually told them what was happening and they didn’t laugh,” Colbert concluded.

Colbert’s appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! came as he and Kimmel appeared as guests on each other’s shows on Sept. 30, one week after Kimmel’s show returned to television following its indefinite hiatus and two months after Colbert announced the ending of the Late Show.

During the July 17 episode of The Late Show, Colbert announced that the network would be ending the series in May and that he “found out just last night.”

CBS told PEOPLE in a statement that it was “purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night.” The announcement was made shortly after Colbert blasted Paramount, the parent company of CBS, during the July 14 episode for its $16 million settlement with President Donald Trump on July 3.

The settlement occurred while Paramount was in the midst of a merger with the entertainment company Skydance, which required approval from Trump’s administration and was completed on Aug. 7.

After the news of Colbert’s cancellation, Kimmel wrote on his Instagram Stories, “Love you Stephen. F— you and all your Sheldons CBS.” He also put up a billboard ad in L.A. to encourage Emmy voters to vote for Colbert in the Outstanding Talk Series category — which the show indeed won on Sept. 14.