Megyn Kelly: Colbert and Stewart respond by crying like children to the cancellation

Megyn Kelly: "You wouldn't believe how Stephen Colbert and his buddy Jon Stewart responded to his cancellation. Cry me a river. Can you grow up, kids? Put on your big boy pants and take it like men. This is absurd.

Many of us have had very public cancellations, and some were downright brutally unfair. And we didn’t invite all our friends to cry on set and say, “poor, poor her, poor, poor him.” American democracy won’t be the same—give me a break.

Some of us handled it like professionals, got up, dusted ourselves off, and moved on with life. Is this what we’re in for next year? Watching this crybaby trying to play the victim because his show got canceled? Grow up. This is called television, kid."

In July 2025, CBS officially announced the cancellation of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, one of the most iconic programs in American late-night television. The show, which Colbert hosted for eleven seasons, is set to end in May 2026. The network justified the decision on financial grounds, stating that the program was generating estimated losses between $40 and $50 million per year, and framed the move within the broader decline of the traditional late-night format.

However, the cancellation sparked controversy due to its timing in relation to political and corporate events. Just days before the announcement, Colbert had harshly criticized on his show a multimillion-dollar settlement between CBS’s parent company, Paramount Global, and Donald Trump, in which the company agreed to pay the president $16 million in damages. Colbert expressed his bewilderment on air and remarked with irony that he wasn’t being replaced—his show would simply cease to exist. In the months that followed, he remained defiant, using his platform to deliver satirical and pointed commentary against the Trump administration and CBS itself, drawing even more media attention.

Numerous figures in the entertainment industry, including Jimmy Kimmel, John Oliver, Seth Meyers, and Jimmy Fallon, expressed their solidarity with Colbert and condemned the decision as an unjust blow to creative freedom. Beyond the political controversy, the cancellation also reflects a deeper shift in the television model. Viewership and advertising revenue for late-night shows have declined significantly over the past decade, and the high production costs of programs like The Late Show—which require large technical and creative teams—are no longer sustainable for many networks. For many, the cancellation of Colbert’s show symbolizes the end of an era in late-night television and marks the beginning of a new chapter in the restructuring of the entertainment industry.