CBS has canceled The Late Show, hosted by pro-LGBTQ+ political satirist Stephen Colbert, one day after he criticized CBS parent company Paramount Global’s $16 million “bribe” to settle President Donald Trump’s lawsuit accusing CBS’ 60 Minutes of deceptively editing its October 2024 interview his political opponent, then-Vice President Kamala Harris.
Legal experts said Trump’s lawsuit had no merit, but noted that the settlement occurred after Trump’s Federal Communications Commission launched an investigation into CBS’ interview while also overseeing Paramount’s proposed $8.4 billion merger with Skydance Media. A day after Colbert criticized Paramount, CBS cancelld his show, calling it “purely a financial decision,” despite his show being the highest-rated late-night show on TV. His show will end in May 2026.
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During his show’s 11-year run, Colbert took numerous stands for the LGBTQ+ community. Here are five such moments that stand out.
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2014: Colbert put the spotlight on same-sex marriage
Colbert put the spotlight on same-sex marriage by taking a few shots at then-Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R)’s opposition to marriage equality, and speaking with Ted Olson and David Boies, the famed legal team who led the Supreme Court challenge against California’s Proposition 8 and the legal challenge to Virginia’s same-sex marriage ban.
Colbert said, “I believe we all must respect Walker’s privacy at this difficult time to be against gay marriage. This is a personal matter between him and his pollster. It is none of the public’s business what Walker decides in the privacy of his own governor’s mansion.”
The fact that Colbert did this, one year before the Supreme Court legalized marriage equality nationwide, showed his commitment to LGBTQ+ people.
2016: Colbert mocks ‘bathroom weirdos’ for fearing trans people
Colbert’s monologue hit back at the legislators nationwide who have made discriminating against transgender people a priority. As only he could, Colbert pointed out that the folks obsessed with where people go to the bathroom are, in fact, the true “weirdos.”
These days, 19 states have laws restricting trans bathroom use. They’re part of the larger conservative crusade to eradicate trans people entirely from public and civic life. And now, just as before, the politicians passing these dehumanizing policies are the real “weirdos.”
2017: Colbert mocks Russian president Vladimir Putin as a “gay clown”
Putin and his nationalist cronies in the Kremlin have made a sport of regularly outlawing any form of LGBTQ+ public expression. In fact, in 2017, they passed a law making it illegal to display images of Putin as a “gay clown. Colbert highlighted the fact that there are so many images of Putin with effeminate clown make-up on the internet that even Russian news networks were unclear which ones were outlawed.
To drive home his mockery — and to defy Vladimir’s attempts at censorship — Colbert depicted a cartoon Putin as a shirtless gay clown singing a deadpan version of drag queen RuPaul’s 1992 dance hit “Supermodel (You Better Work).” While some might find Colbert’s mockery homophobic, it delated Putin’s homoerotic strongman image and showed the silliness of his anti-gay censorship law.
2021: Pete Buttigieg denounces “terrible” attacks on trans youth on Stephen Colbert’s show
During his show’s run, Colbert repeatedly featured out queer guests speaking out against policies affecting the LGBTQ+ community.
In one such segment, out Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg spoke out forcefully against the nationwide attacks on trans youth and to highlight the progress made for LGBTQ+ people working in the U.S. government.
“These kids have the courage to be who they are, and they just want to be accepted and go to the bathroom like everybody else, and play sports like everybody else and be – live,” Buttigieg said. He worried that anti-trans legislation conveys the message that trans people shouldn’t exist, something trans kids may believe.
Years before the Republican party began targeting trans kids worldwide, Colbert provided a platform to speak in defense of this young, vulnerable community.
2024: Colbert clowns GOP “Black Nazi perv” candidate Mark Robinson
In 2024, North Carolina’s then-Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson (R), was running to become his state’s governor. His campaign was alarming, considering his many anti-LGBTQ+ statements, such as calling homosexuality “an abominable sin,” comparing LGBTQ+ people to cow dung and Satanic demons, and saying trans people should defecate on public street corners outside rather than using bathrooms matching their gender identity.
However, after CNN dropped a bombshell report highlighting racist and antisemitic comments that Robinson allegedly made on an explicit adult online forum, Colbert piled on the well-deserved mockery.
“[Robinson] referred to himself [in the online forum] as ‘a Black Nazi,’ meaning Donald Trump might say he’s a very fine person, but would not rent an apartment to him,” Colbert joked, referencing both Trump’s infamous August 15, 2017 comments that there were “very fine people” involved in a Charlottesville, Virginia white supremacist rally and also the infamous 1973 federal lawsuit brought against Trump for alleged anti-Black discrimination in his housing developments.
Colbert called Robinson’s comments “off-topic for a porn message board,” adding, “Mark, come on, stay focused. We’re not talking about Hitler right now. We’re debating if that delivery man was fairly compensated for the pizza he delivered with extra sausage.”
Robinson horribly lost his race, thanks to the bad press he received in the weeks and months leading up to his election.
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