Ousted CBS television host Stephen Colbert told Jimmy Kimmel on Wednesday that he is not thinking about returning to the late-night airwaves, in an interview months after his show formally ended.
Colbert hosted his last episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in May, nearly one year after CBS and its parent company, Paramount, announced that they would be canceling the comedian’s show for financial reasons. On Monday evening, his show won six Emmy Awards during the 78th annual primetime television awards, the most Emmys Colbert’s show has won in any of its 11 seasons.
After the Emmy Awards, Colbert made his debut return to late-night in a sit-down with Kimmel, joking about how he has felt better since his time off the airwaves. When Colbert quipped that he has “many fond memories” of hosting late night, Kimmel asked, “Do you think about it ever?” to which Colbert answered quickly, “Nope.”
“I have an opportunity to not think about the news every day, and I took it,” Colbert said.
“When I saw you last night,” Kimmel said to Colbert, referring to seeing him at the Emmy awards, “I felt like you, I don’t know, you just seemed like a different person. You seemed happier, you seemed healthier.”
“Like I don’t drink a cup of poison every day?” Colbert joked.
After CBS’s cancellation of his show took effect in May, Colbert was officially off television for the first time in his nearly three-decade TV career.
The former late-night show often took aim at President Donald Trump and the Trump administration during his monologues, causing rumblings among Democrats that there may have been an ulterior motive for his show’s cancelation as Paramount needed approval from the Federal Communications Commission for its merger with Skydance. CBS and Paramount have maintained that the cancellation was for financial reasons.
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Colbert also addressed the fact that he does not plan on returning to late-night on the Emmy red carpet, telling E! News, “I think the Jimmys have got that locked down for right now,” referring to Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon.
“For an unemployed person, I’m very busy,” Colbert said.