Jimmy Kimmel is stepping out of the way for Stephen Colbert's final night. Kimmel's late-night show will air a rerun next Thursday, the same night CBS airs the last episode of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert on May 21.
The move means Colbert will get to say goodbye with only one fresh competitor on network television, NBC's Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. Kimmel made the same choice in 2015, when David Letterman signed off from Late Show and he kept his own show dark for the farewell.
For Colbert, the ending has been coming for 10 months. CBS announced in July 2025 that The Late Show would end the following May and said, “We consider Stephen Colbert irreplaceable and will retire The Late Show franchise at that time,” adding, “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.” Reports later suggested the network was losing upwards of $40 million a year on the production.
Colbert took the news on air eight days before the FCC approved the Skydance Media merger with Paramount Global on July 24, saying, “not just the end of our show, but it's the end of The Late Show on CBS.” He also told viewers, “I'm not being replaced. This is all just going away,” a line that captured the difference between a handoff and a shutdown.
The host struck a calmer note in a GQ exit interview in November, saying he had a “great relationship” with CBS even though the cancellation was “surprising and so shocking.” He added, “I was surprised. Listen, every show's got to end at some time. And I've been on a bunch of shows that have ended,” then called the moment unusual in one more way: “I think we're the first number one show to ever get canceled.”
Colbert's second-to-last week begins Monday with Fallon, Kimmel, Seth Meyers and John Oliver among the guests. By then, the show will already be moving toward its last broadcast, and the late-night landscape will be narrowing around it rather than building to a handoff. That is the point of Kimmel's rerun: one less live challenge, and one more clear path for Colbert's last night to land on its own.
