Source: Entertainment Weekly

The Late Show With Stephen Colbert just won another Emmy before signing off for good.

During Sunday’s star-studded awards ceremony, Stephen Colbert’s long-running late-night show won Outstanding Talk Series, only two months after CBS — the network also airing tonight’s Emmys — made the controversial decision to cancel it.

The entire audience gave Colbert a standing ovation and chanted “Stephen! Stephen! Stephen!” as the host and his creative team walked up to the mic.

“I want to thank CBS for giving us the privilege to be part of the late-night tradition, which I hope continues long after we’re no longer doing this show,” Colbert said before thanking the entire team of “200 incredible professionals” who made the show in addition to his family. He then shouted out “a young woman who should be here tonight, Amy Cole,” paying tribute to his longtime executive assistant who died in March 2024 at age 53 after battling cancer.

Colbert went on to remember the very beginning of his tenure hosting The Late Show.

“10 years ago, in September of 2015, Spike Jonze stopped by the office and said, ‘Hey, what do you want this show to be about?'” Colbert said. “And I said, ‘Ah, Spike, I don’t know how you could do it, but I’d kind of like do a late-night show, a late-night comedy show, that was about love.'”

While Colbert was never sure if he “ever figured that out,” he realized “at a certain point, and you can guess what that point was,” that they were actually making a late-night comedy show “about loss.”

“And that’s related to love, because sometimes you only truly know how much you love something when you get a sense that you might be losing it,” Colbert added. “10 years later, in September of 2025, my friends, I have never loved my country more desperately. God bless America, stay strong, be brave, and if the elevator tries to bring you down, go crazy and punch a higher floor!”

The Late Show’s new trophy joins the one that Jim Hoskinson won at last weekend’s Creative Arts Emmys for Outstanding Directing for a Variety Series (for the episode, “David Oyelowo, Finn Wolfhard, Special Appearance by Alan Cumming, Performance By Ok Go”). That was the franchise’s first-ever Emmy win after it was nominated 33 times since its debut in 2015.

The show beat out fellow nominees The Daily Show and Jimmy Kimmel Live! — likely helped by the fact that Jimmy Kimmel himself even campaigned and voted for his friend Colbert because it’s “the least we could do at this point.”

“I think it will be a nice statement if he does win,” Kimmel previously said. “Obviously, awards don’t mean much, but every once in a while they do, and in this case, I think it will. I fully expect Stephen to win the Emmy as I think people are very, very upset about what happened to him and his show.”

The industry backlash against CBS for canceling the series has been swift and intense. Sen. Elizabeth Warren — who has been candid about her disapproval over Paramount settling the lawsuit brought by Trump over a 2024 60 Minutes interview with his contender in that year’s presidential election, Kamala Harris — is among the most vocal critics calling out the deal as “bribery.”

In July, CBS announced that The Late Show would officially be coming to an end in May 2026. While the network noted at the time that the cancellation was “purely a financial decision,” critics have questioned if the then-pending merger of Paramount Global to Skydance Media — which required the approval of the Trump administration — played a factor as well. The FCC approved the merger on July 24, eight days after Colbert announced the show’s cancellation on air.

“We consider Stephen Colbert irreplaceable and will retire The Late Show franchise,” CBS said in a statement. “We are proud that Stephen called CBS home. He and the broadcast will be remembered in the pantheon of greats that graced late night television. This is purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night. It is not related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount.”

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Trump celebrated news of The Late Show’s cancellation on social media, writing that Colbert’s “talent was even less than his ratings.” In the wake of the news, Colbert has not backed down on openly criticizing Trump and his administration throughout the president’s second term. Reacting to Trump’s post about his cancellation, Colbert said, “How dare you, sir. Would an untalented man be able to compose the following satirical witticism: Go f— yourself.”

Colbert officially took over as host of The Late Show in September 2015, replacing David Letterman, who launched the franchise in August 1993. When Letterman hosted the show, it won nine Emmys.

Before these two Late Show wins, Colbert already won 10 Emmys for The Colbert Report and his special, Stephen Colbert’s Election Night 2020: Democracy’s Last Stand: Building Back America Great Again Better 2020.

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