Stephen Colbert is by the pool at the Chateau Marmont in West Hollywood wearing bathing trunks, a robe, and nothing else. GQ’s idea, not his. It’s been about two months since CBS canceled The Late Show With Stephen Colbert. Twenty-four hours from now Colbert and his staff will win their second Emmy of the year, the first two that the show has won since Colbert started doing The Late Show. The crowd will give Colbert a standing ovation right at the beginning of the ceremony.
Right this second he’s in the robe, about to get into the pool, and holding a lit joint that I maybe think I see him smoking, but when I mention it later, this is his response: “You cannot prove that I was smoking unless you want to do a blood test right now.” Then he tells me to get a warrant: “Are you a cop?” (I am not a cop.)
When CBS canceled The Late Show, it had been the number one show in late night for the better part of nine years. CBS described the choice as “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.” The other matters happening at Paramount at the time were a planned merger with Skydance Media (now complete) and a $16 million settlement the company had recently paid to President Donald Trump over a 60 Minutes–related lawsuit. Colbert, on air two days before his show was canceled, said that this kind of settlement “has a technical name in legal circles. It’s: big fat bribe.”
