Fresh from announcing the cancellation of his show last week, late-night host Stephen Colbert<\/a> was joined by a star-studded line-up of celebrity guests to spoof the network on Monday.<\/p>\n Colbert revealed last week that CBS<\/a> would be axing The Late Show<\/a> from May 2026, a move the network said was \u201cpurely a financial decision\u201d but which came just days after its parent company Paramount<\/a> agreed to pay $16m to Donald Trump<\/a> after he complained that a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris<\/a> last year was manipulatively edited.<\/p>\n On Monday\u2019s show, the host addressed the situation by saying: \u201cSome people see this show going away as a sign of something truly dire\u2026 We here at The Late Show never saw our job as changing anything other than how you felt at the end of the day. <\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n A defiant Stephen Colbert hosts The Late Show days after its axing was announced (The Late Show\/CBS)<\/p>\n \u201cOr rather, changing how you felt the next morning, when you watched on your phone, which is why broadcast TV is dying \u2013 you\u2019re part of the problem, look in the mirror.<\/p>\n \u201cPoint is, I don\u2019t want this show to be associated with making you sad or anxious. So I thought: music, OK? That makes people happy, right? So instead of me talking, here with a song to cheer you up are two musical greats.\u201d<\/p>\n He duly welcomed on stage \u201cWeird Al\u201d Yankovic and Broadway star Lin-Manuel Miranda<\/a> to perform Coldplay<\/a>\u2019s \u201cViva La Vida,\u201d setting up a parody of the viral video that exposed an affair between a tech company CEO and his head of HR<\/a> after they were caught embracing on the jumbotron during the band\u2019s gig in Boston last week.<\/p>\n Yankovic and Miranda broke off their performance to draw attention to the studio audience, prompting the camera to roam around the Ed Sullivan Theater and pick out the likes of Anderson Cooper<\/a> and Andy Cohen<\/a> sitting together, Jimmy Fallon<\/a> and Seth Meyers<\/a> sharing a beer, Adam Sandler<\/a> and Christopher McDonald eating popcorn shrimp and John Oliver<\/a> and Jon Stewart<\/a> waving wildly.<\/p>\n The camera finally landed on an animated cartoon version of Trump hugging the Paramount logo before the pair awkwardly separated on realizing they were being watched, just as Astronomer CEO Andy Byron<\/a> and Kristin Cabot had in the viral \u201ckiss cam\u201d video.<\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n Fellow late-night hosts Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers in the Late Show audience to support Stephen Colbert (The Late Show\/CBS)<\/p>\n Colbert then hurriedly read aloud a corporate memo ordering Yankovic and Miranda to end their performance, saying the call was strictly a \u201cfinancial\u201d decision that had already cost the network \u201c$40 million to $50 million.\u201d<\/p>\n The host also addressed the cancellation in his opening monologue, by saying: \u201cIt sunk in over the weekend that they\u2019re killing off our show\u2026 but they made one mistake, they left me alive. Now, for the next 10 months, the gloves are off.\u201d<\/p>\n He went on to read aloud a Truth Social post<\/a> from Trump in which he wrote: \u201cI absolutely love that Colbert got fired. His talent was even less than his ratings. I hear Jimmy Kimmel<\/a> is next. He has even less talent than Colbert! Greg Gutfeld<\/a> is better than all of them combined, including the Moron on NBC who ruined the once great Tonight Show.\u201d<\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n The Late Show with Stephen Colbert sends up Paramount’s pandering to Donald Trump in a spoof of the Coldplay ‘kiss cam’ controversy (The Late Show\/CBS)<\/p>\n Colbert responded: \u201cHow dare you, sir? Would an untalented man be able to compose the following satirical witticism?\u201d He then turned to the studio\u2019s \u201cEloquence Cam\u201d and said simply: \u201cGo f*** yourself.\u201d <\/a><\/p>\n On Trump\u2019s comment that Kimmel was \u201cnext,\u201d Colbert said: \u201cNope, no, no. Absolutely not. Kimmel, I am the martyr. There\u2019s only room for one on this cross.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/1753186992_326_Stephen-Colbert.png\")
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