LATE SHOW HOST Stephen Colbert presented his final episode of the 33-year-old show last night – but the Pope, who the devout Catholic presenter has long said is his dream guest, couldn’t make it.

The Late Show, which Colbert hosted since 2015, was cancelled by CBS last July, three days after Colbert slammed the network for settling a lawsuit with Trump.

“The pope, who was definitely my guest tonight, has cancelled,” Colbert joked last night.

But it wasn’t all bad as the Beatles’s Paul McCartney led an all-star line-up for the final episode.

McCartney sang Beatles mega-hit Hello, Goodbye to the crowd at New York’s Ed Sullivan theatre, where the Beatles performed in 1964 when they made their US debut.

“We thought America was just the land of the free, the greatest democracy. Was. Still is hopefully,” he said, wagging his finger at Colbert.

#StephenColbert ends "The Late Show" by playing “Hello, Goodbye” with Paul McCartney.

(via "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" / CBS)https://t.co/rMws5pmnyI pic.twitter.com/Hq0G4FS7XC

— Variety (@Variety) May 22, 2026

There were also cameos from actors Tim Meadows, Paul Rudd, Ryan Reynolds and Bryan Cranston. 

A huge crowd formed around the Manhattan theatre, cheering every celebrity arrival and trying to listen through the stage door.

Colbert did not mention Trump directly on Thursday, instead using a recurring CGI wormhole gag as a metaphor for the president’s impact on US public life.

He told the audience that “we were here to field the news with you, and I don’t know about you, but I sure have felt it.” 

Fans line up in the rain outside the Ed Sullivan Theater in New York on Thursday. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

CBS has been widely accused of seeking to curry favour with Trump for business reasons, and Colbert called the settlement a “big fat bribe”.

However, the network insisted the decision to cancel The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, the ratings’ leader in the time slot, was purely financial – and that it was a coincidence the move came as CBS parent company Paramount lobbied for government approval of its $8.4 billion (€7.24 billion) merger with Skydance Media.

Trump revelled in the firing of one of his most prolific detractors at the time, posting on his Truth Social platform that “I absolutely love that Colbert was fired.”

With additional reporting from AFP