Jimmy Kimmel won’t air episode against Stephen Colbert’s final ‘The Late Show’
Jimmy Kimmel has revealed that a new episode of his talk show will not air on the final night Stephen Colbert is set to host The Late Show.
Normal episodes of Jimmy Kimmel Live! will air as per usual from May 18th to 20th, before a repeat is broadcast on May 21st in order to give way to Colbert’s show.
Kimmel confirmed the news to Late Nighter, with his own show not airing live on May 21st out of respect to Colbert and his staff, who will sign off with the final ever episode of The Late Show that night.
It is an act Kimmel has insisted on performing before, with him giving way on his network, ABC, in 2015 to allow David Letterman to be honoured on his final night of hosting duties, prior to Colbert’s takeover, on the CBS stalwart talk show.
The Late Show has run on the network since the beginning of Letterman’s tenure in 1993, but last year it was controversially announced that it was set to be axed after running for almost 33 years.
When the decision was revealed last July, the company insisted that the reasons for the cancellation were “purely financial”. However, much speculation has swirled to the contrary, pointing to CBS’ legal settlement with Donald Trump and its merger with Paramount and Skydance.
Colbert has always stopped short of confirming whether this is the case or not, but said it was “reasonable to think” that the axing was “politically motivated” in an interview with GQ in November.
Despite this, he did openly tell Trump to “go fuck yourself” after the president celebrated the news of the cancellation last summer, warning, “Jimmy Kimmel is next!”
After a tumultuous year in the late night landscape, often at the behest of the US leader, Colbert revealed in March that after his show ends, he is set to write the script for a new Lord of the Rings film, tentatively titled The Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past.
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