After 10 unforgettable years and more than 1,800 episodes, Stephen Colbert said goodbye to The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in a finale so emotional, surreal, and star-packed that fans are calling it the end of an era. 
From a “reality-bending” wormhole swallowing the set to surprise appearances by the legendary Strike Force Five crew — Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers, John Oliver, and mentor Jon Stewart — the final episode became an emotional love letter to late-night television. 
Then came the moment nobody was ready for: Paul McCartney returning to the historic Ed Sullivan Theater to sing “Hello, Goodbye” alongside Colbert, bringing the audience to tears as the curtain officially fell. 
Behind the laughter, celebrity cameos, and unforgettable musical performances was a deeper story about friendship, exhaustion, loyalty, and the battle that shaped Colbert’s final years on air.
Colbert had hosted the franchise since taking over from David Letterman in 2015.
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And that’s a wrap for The Late Show.
Stephen Colbert, the franchise’s host for the past decade, signed off Thursday, May 21 after over 1,800 shows.
Fans started lining up early in the rain for a chance to see Colbert tape his last show and held up signs of thanks to the now-former talk show host.
Colbert opened the show not with his usual monologue but with a message to the audience: “This show, I want you to know, has been a joy for us to do for you,” he told the camera. “In fact, we call this show the ‘Joy Machine.’”
The machine part, he said, was required to crank out so many shows.
“But the thing is, if you choose to do it with joy, it doesn’t hurt as much when your fingers get caught in the gears,” Colbert said. “And I cannot adequately explain to you what the people who work here have done for each other and how much we mean to each other.”
But he also cracked, “If you’re just tuning into The Late Show, you missed a lot.”
The comedian did not once mention President Donald Trump, his frequent sparring partner over recent years who many believe used his authority over CBS network’s business dealings to get Colbert’s show canceled.
While there were numerous celebrities in the audience who made a “forced” celebrity cameos and wanted to be his last guest — including Bryan Cranston, Paul Rudd, and Tim Meadows — Colbert’s last sit-down interview was with music icon Paul McCartney. The former Beatle returned to where it all began, the Ed Sullivan Theater, where his band famously performed on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964.
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Before the episode ended, Colbert also welcomed astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, who explained the wormhole eating The Late Show set. Colbert’s fellow Strike Force Five members — late-night hosts Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers, and John Oliver — also returned one last time, along with Colbert’s longtime mentor and former The Daily Show colleague Jon Stewart.
Jon Batiste and Elvis Costello appeared as musical guests during the episode with Colbert performing with them. Some of the last moments of the show featured McCartney at the mic, singing his former group’s 1967 song “Hello, Goodbye” with Colbert backing him on vocals along with Batiste and Costello.
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CBS announced in July that it planned to end its late-night TV franchise, which debuted with host David Letterman in 1993, after one last season. The move was “purely a financial decision,” the network said at the time, insisting that the move was unrelated to “the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount.”
Colbert himself thanked his fans and staff on-air, vowing to make his show’s final season count.
“We get to do this show for each other, every day, all day,” Colbert said. “And I’ve had the pleasure and the responsibility of sharing what we do every day with you in front of this camera for the last 10 years.”
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He showed a different emotion after Trump, a frequent nemesis of late-night TV, expressed his delight over the news Colbert was out.
After Trump wrote on social media, “I absolutely love that Colbert got fired,” the host demanded on-air, “How dare you sir?” He then did a bit in which he told Trump to “Go f— yourself.”
Colbert has received much love from his fellow late-night hosts in the final days of his show. Kimmel even took out a billboard seeking support for Colbert and company to win the Emmy for Outstanding Talk Series for the first time, which they did. The men also reassembled as the collective Strike Force Five to raise money for charity in one of Colbert’s final shows.
The last dozen or so episodes were stacked with impressive guest lineups that included former President Barack Obama, Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Colbert also spent time on a “worst of” episode, which featured sketches and jokes that hadn’t made it to air previously, and an episode of him reminiscing with Letterman himself. That one ended with the two tossing CBS-owned furniture off the roof.
Colbert mused in final days on the air that leaving late-night just might have “saved my life,” the husband and father-of-three adult children told PEOPLE. “It takes a lot of bone marrow to do the show every day, and now I’ll be stepping down with enough time, enough energy to do other things that I want to do.”
Beginning Friday, The Late Show‘s spot on the TV schedule will be filled by Comics Unleashed With Byron Allen, which is hosted by a Colbert fan.
