Five of the Most Memorable Moments on ‘The Late Show With Stephen Colbert’

Reported by Vogue.

Stephen Colbert's Late Show ends this week — not by his choice — after nearly 11 years of doing something genuinely rare in late-night television: staying sharp without turning smug. According to Vogue, the Emmy-winning show managed to be both thoughtful and irreverent across its run, never tipping into the self-righteous moralizing that sinks so many of its peers. What it leaves behind is a string of moments that were, by turns, devastating, joyful, and just a little bit dangerous.

The Moments That Actually Mattered

Some of the most affecting television of the past decade happened on a late-night set. When Nick Cave sat down in August 2024 to discuss his album Wild God, the conversation moved well beyond music — into grief, survival, and the counterintuitive light on the other side of loss. "There is joy and there is happiness in a way you could never believe possible on the other side of grief," Cave said. Colbert, who lost his father and two brothers in childhood, had a gift for these exchanges — meeting guests in the hard places without making it feel like therapy. Equally resonant: Lady Gaga's 2018 appearance during the Kavanaugh hearings, where she explained, with startling clarity, the neuroscience of trauma — why Dr. Christine Blasey Ford remembered what she remembered, the way she remembered it. "When that box opened, she was brave enough to share it with the world to protect this country." It was the kind of moment that reminded you celebrity platforms, used well, can actually do something.

Then there were the moments that were pure, unexpected delight. John Lewis — civil rights icon, congressman, living legend — crowd-surfing after his 2016 interview. The image still feels like a gift. And Democratic Texas Senate candidate James Talarico's interview, which never aired on CBS due to FCC equal-time rules, found millions of viewers on YouTube anyway — proof that audiences will find the conversations worth having, with or without network permission. The subject: Talarico's devout Christianity and the contradictions embedded in the Religious Right. Uncomfortable, necessary, very much on-brand.

Perhaps the sharpest moment of all came last July, when Colbert turned his monologue on his own employer. After CBS settled a $16 million lawsuit with President Donald Trump, Colbert called it plainly: "a big, fat bribe." He added that, as a proud network employee, he was offended — and that $16 million might be a start toward repairing his trust. It was the kind of joke that wasn't entirely a joke, delivered by someone who clearly understood the difference. The fact that the show is ending not on his terms makes the line land even harder in retrospect.

Eleven years of refusing to dumb it down, and the lesson is simple: audiences don't need to be coddled — they need to be trusted.

Read the original at Vogue.