“The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” won the Emmy for outstanding talk series Sunday for the first time — seven months before it goes off the air.
Colbert, accepting the award to rapturous applause and cheers from the audience inside Los Angeles’ Peacock Theater, thanked the roughly 200 “incredible professionals” who work behind the scenes of the late-night show, which CBS is canceling.
He then reflected more broadly on the legacy of “The Late Show,” saying he originally set out to do a late-night comedy series about “love” and then realized it was actually about “loss.”
“Sometimes, you only know how much you love something when you get a sense you might be losing it. … I have never loved my country more desperately. God bless America. Stay strong and be brave, and if the elevator tries to bring you down, go crazy and punch a higher floor,” Colbert said.
CBS announced in July that it would end “The Late Show” at the conclusion of its current season, which runs through May. In a statement at the time, network executives said the move was “not related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount.”
The other matters included the pending corporate tie-up between Paramount, CBS’ parent company, and Skydance. The merger required approval from the Trump administration’s Federal Communications Commission.
In the wake of the cancellation announcement, many of Colbert’s fans cried foul, arguing he was being penalized for his long history of criticizing President Donald Trump.
Colbert had also mocked Paramount for agreeing to pay $16 million to settle a lawsuit from Trump, who alleged that CBS’ “60 Minutes” had deceptively edited a pre-election interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris.
CBS denied the president’s claim.
Colbert, in his acceptance speech, did not criticize the network he has called home since 2015.
“I want to thank CBS for giving us the privilege to being part of late-night tradition, which I hope continues long after we’re no longer doing this show,” Colbert said.
The other nominees in the talk show category this year were Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” and ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”
