Stephen Colbert mocks Paramount at Writers Guild Awards after show cancellation
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“The Late Show” host Stephen Colbert mocked Paramount for canceling his show after being honored at the 2026 Writers Guild Awards on Sunday night.
Colbert at the ceremony Received the Walter Bernstein Award for demonstrating “a willingness to confront social injustice in the face of adversity with creativity, grace and courage” following the recent cancellation of her show by CBS and its parent company Paramount.
Although Colbert denied the connections between himself and the blacklisted Hollywood screenwriter behind the award’s name, he joked that Paramount would effectively end the “revolution” by ending his show.
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CBS announced in the summer that it would cancel “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” at the end of May 2026 due to financial reasons. (Getty Images)
“This isn’t the 1950s,” Colbert said. “This is not the Red Scare. And from what I understand, no one is inciting revolution in late night. The revolution as we know it will not be televised. It was going to be televised, but then Paramount bought it.”
He added: “Frankly, revolution was losing about $40 million a year – it had to go. I think revolution is considering launching a Substack.”
Fox News Digital reached out to Paramount for comment but did not immediately hear back.
CBS announced in July that it was canceling “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” and that it would officially go off the air in May 2026. Liberal critics accused CBS and Paramount of ending the show to appease President Donald Trump and gain approval for the long-planned merger between Paramount Global and Skydance Media.
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CBS said it was “purely a financial decision in a challenging environment for late night,” adding, “This has nothing to do with the show’s performance, content, or other issues going on at Paramount.”
Critics accused Paramount of canceling “The Last Show with Stephen Colbert” to appease the Trump administration. (Scott Kowalchyk/CBS via Getty Images)
But the Writers Guild of America East alleged that Colbert, a frequent critic of Trump, used his platform to oppose a “threat to democracy” after his show ended.
Tom Fontana, president of the Writers Guild of America East, said: “Walter would be proud to be given the award to Colbert.” he said in a statement. “Colbert risked his career to fight a threat to democracy that was far greater than the loss of the beloved ‘Late Show.’ Stephen Colbert built an empire by speaking truth to power, and we are proud to have him as a WGAE member.”
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Despite Fontana’s statement, Colbert denied the parallel between him and Bernstein’s history of blacklisting.
Stephen Colbert speaks during the 2026 Writers Guild Awards New York Ceremony at the Edison Ballroom on March 08, 2026 in New York City. (Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for Writers Guild of America East)
“The blacklist was not a law, regulation or executive order,” Colbert said. “It was a voluntary industry-wide agreement to deny work to left-leaning artists out of fear that some members of the government might publicly attack those artists’ parent companies for the union they belonged to. It was this threat, just the threat of trouble, that ended many careers.”
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He continued, “Although it is a great honor to be associated with Mr. Bernstein in any way, I would like to make it clear that I do not deserve the implied likeness.”
Fox News’ Brian Flood and Joseph A. Wulfsohn contributed to this report.
