“I am your host,” The Tonight Show’s Jimmy Fallon kicked off, telling his Monday broadcast crowd.
“Well, at least for tonight,” the comedian added, obviously referencing the recent cancellation of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Fallon quickly told the crowd he didn’t like it.
“I don’t like what’s going on one bit. These are crazy times,” he added, joking that his father called him to say he was not a “Kimmel guy.” He noted that “everyone” was talking about CBS’ decision to end The Late Show.
Last week, Colbert and CBS announced the long-running late-night show will come to an end after the 2025-26 season. The show has been running since 1993. “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert will end its historic run in May 2026 at the end of the broadcast season,” Paramount co-CEO and CBS president and CEO George Cheeks, CBS Entertainment head Amy Reisenbach and CBS Studios president David Stapf said in a statement. “We consider Stephen Colbert irreplaceable and will retire The Late Show franchise at that time. 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.
The cancellation comes as CBS’ parent company, Paramount Global, hopes to close a merger with Skydance in the near future. The company also recently settled a lawsuit filed last year by Donald Trump (before he was elected to a second term as president), which Colbert himself criticized earlier that week.
“This is purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night,” the statement from Paramount and CBS assured. “It is not related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount.”
Fallon noted in his Monday broadcast that many were planning to boycott the network over the decision. “CBS could lose millions of viewers, plus tens of hundreds watching on Paramount+,” Fallon joked in the monologue. The Tonight Show host spent time praising Colbert for 10 years of smart work and many Emmys. He also reacted the morning after the news broke last week with a statement saying, “I’m just as shocked as everyone. Stephen is one of the sharpest, funniest hosts to ever do it. I really thought I’d ride this out with him for years to come.”
Fallon was among a slew of famous faces showing solidarity with Colbert during a Coldplay kiss cam parody skit on his Monday night show, alongside Andy Cohen, Anderson Cooper, Adam Sandler, Christopher McDonald, Last Week Tonight‘s John Oliver, Late Night‘s Seth Meyers and The Daily Show‘s Jon Stewart.
Colbert started Monday night’s episode with a lively monologue about the cancellation, promising that the “gloves are off” and that he’d be honest about how he feels about Trump, who took to social media to share his reaction to the news.
“I absolutely love that Colbert got fired,” Trump wrote on Truth Social last week. “His talent was even less than his ratings. I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next. Has even less talent than Colbert! [Fox News late night host] Greg Gutfeld is better than all of them combined, including the Moron on NBC who ruined the once great Tonight Show.”
The Writers Guild of America, the union representing the Late Show’s writers, called for New York to investigate Paramount’s cancellation of the show. “Cancelations are part of the business, but a corporation terminating a show in bad faith due to explicit or implicit political pressure is dangerous and unacceptable in a democratic society,” the union said in statement. “Paramount’s decision comes against a backdrop of relentless attacks on a free press by President Trump, through lawsuits against CBS and ABC, threatened litigation of media organizations with critical coverage, and the unconscionable defunding of PBS and NPR.”