Jimmy Kimmel has some thoughts on the purported death of late-night television.
The “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” host opened up in a new interview with Vulture about the future of the genre following the cancellation of Stephen Colbert‘s “Late Show” on CBS and his own run-ins with Trump, including his suspension following comments made about the death of Charlie Kirk.
“I feel a little bit defeated about it,” Kimmel told Vulture after Colbert’s final episode aired on May 21. “In a lot of ways, I feel like I’m looking at my own future.”
CBS canceled “The Late Show” in July 2025 — a year before Colbert’s three-year deal was set to end — citing “purely financial reasons” despite much speculation that Colbert’s anti-Trump views had something to do with it, especially with the Paramount-Skydance merger in the background. Though it was reported that Colbert’s show was losing $40 million a year, Kimmel told Vulture he finds that hard to believe, pointing to a 2023 New York Times article that claims Colbert was offered a five-year contract but decided to go with three.
“Am I to believe that over the course of those two years, they suddenly started losing $40 million a year?” he said. “These are just made-up numbers.”
