New Yorkers Bid A Melancholy Farewell To Stephen Colbert As ‘The Late Show’ Tapes Final Episode

The Late Show‘s 11-year run on CBS ended on a muted note of melancholy Thursday – outside New York’s Ed Sullivan Theater, at any rate.

As Stephen Colbert taped his final late-night episode for broadcast later Thursday, a crowd of a few dozen fans gathered in the chilly spring drizzle to pay their respects. Some carried hand-made signs with messages like “Thank you, Stephen” and “Keep Colbert, Fire Trump.”

This being New York, the usual looky-loos showed up, drawn by the lights of TV cameras, clad in Late Show merch and hoping to catch a fleeting glimpse of a member of the top-secret guest list for the finale. The number of fans was roughly equaled by the amount of security guards and cops as well as members of the media, meaning plenty of exposure for the woman dressed as Pope Leo XIV, a guest long sought by Colbert. Across 53rd Street, stars from a matinee performance of Broadway show The Great Gatsby drew a similarly sized crowd.

Audience members were shown to their seats early Thursday afternoon. Several hours later, even after the last celebrities and VIPs had been dropped off at the Ed Sullivan stage door, fans lingered, not wanting to come to terms with the fact that the show had reached its final day. Apart from a few wistful exchanges about recent episodes, fans huddled under umbrellas and mostly kept their eyes trained on the and the scene had a decidedly subdued, desultory feel. The dejection briefly abated when people standing along the metal doors of the theater heard muffled cheers when the taping began, bringing a few smiles to the gathering.

Prevailing sentiment on the street was unanimously against CBS parent Paramount‘s decision last year to cancel The Late Show for what it has insisted were concerns about its loss-making financials and not Colbert’s decade of deriding Trump. With timing destined to arouse suspicion, soon after announcing the show’s cancellation, Paramount gained approval for its merger with Skydance from President Trump’s FCC. Trump gloated about the cancellation on Truth Social, adding to the impression of a quid pro quo.

“It’s so stupid,” muttered one passerby. “That’s exactly the word for it!” another responded. “All because the president can’t take a joke.”

A few members of the crowd tried to keep things light, but the weight of the moment (not to mention the rain and the lack of paparazzi-worthy celebrity appearances) informed the mood. Colette Divine, an actor from Nashville, TN wearing a “Thank you, Stephen” button, didn’t hide the depths of her feelings for the late-night host. “I’m going to start crying again,” she said when Deadline asked why she had come to the farewell without a seat inside the theater. During Covid, “everything was scary and unknown,” the native New Yorker recalled, and tuning in to The Late Show helped provide some balance.

“My mom and I would watch together,” Divine said. “I would FaceTime with her and hold the phone up to the TV.”

While the topic is perhaps not a top-of-mind one nationally, the fate of the Ed Sullivan Theater is on the mind of many New Yorkers. The venue opened in 1927 and has hosted famous performances by the Beatles and Elvis Presley before a makeover by Colbert’s Late Show predecessor, David Letterman. The history of the landmarked building on Broadway is vivid enough such that Letterman got Paul McCartney to play a mini-concert on its marquee in 2009.

Paramount has steadily been pruning its real estate portfolio, exiting the former CBS headquarters (aka Black Rock), selling Television City in Los Angeles and making plans to leave Viacom’s longtime home in Times Square. It is aiming to close its $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery by September and aims to shed more non-core assets. A source familiar with the situation told Deadline the theater may join the list of properties on the block, but a refashioning as a Broadway house is unlikely. At the same time, a source inside the company says there are no current plans to sell the theater.

A Paramount rep referred Deadline’s query about the theater to CBS, which declined to comment.