COLBERT’S SECRET STRUGGLES: From Devastating PLANE CR@SH To SH0CKING HEALTH Crisis—Inside The Untold Story
American comedian and political commentator Stephen Colbert has announced that his hugely successful series The Late Show with Stephen Colbert is ending.
Addressing the audience on his programme last night (July 17), he said: “Before we start the show, I want to let you know something I found out just last night, next year, will be our last season. The network will be ending The Late Show in May.”
The news was met with the sound of loud boos and jeers from the audience.
Colbert continued: “Yeah, I share your feelings. It’s not just the end of our show, but it’s the end of The Late Show on CBS. I’m not being replaced, this is all just going away.
“And I do want to say that the folks at CBS have been great partners.
“I’m so grateful to The Tiffany Network for giving me this chair and this beautiful theatre to call home.
“And, of course, I’m grateful to you the audience, who have joined us every night in here, out there, all around the world, Mr and Mrs America and all the ships at sea.”
As Colbert continued, he grew emotional and appeared to be fighting back tears.
He said: “I’m grateful to share the stage with this band, these artists over here. And I am extraordinarily, deeply grateful to the 200 people who work here.
“We get to do this show for each other, each day, every day and I’ve had the pleasure and responsibility of sharing what we do with you every day in front of the camera for the past 10 years, and let me tell you, it is a fantastic job.
“I wish somebody else was getting it and it’s a job that I’m looking forward to doing with this usual gang of idiots for another 10 months. It’s going to be fun, y’all ready? Okay, that’s all I wanted to say.”
Many people are keen to know more about Colbert, who’s had a lengthy TV career to date with appearances in The Dana Carvey Show, Strangers with Candy, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report and most recently The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, which he’s been part of since 2015.

Stephen Colbert has faced his fair share of tragedy away from the cameras (Image: GETTY)
Stephen Colbert’s life-changing plane crash
The comedian, writer and TV host has had an eventful life away from the cameras.
Born in 1964, Colbert came from a large family and was the youngest of 10 siblings. However, at the tender age of 10, Colbert’s life was changed forever after his family was struck by tragedy.
His doctor and academic father James William Colbert, Jr. and two brothers Paul and Peter were killed in a plane crash in 1974.
The short flight from Charleston to Charlotte, North Carolina never reached its intended destination, crashing into a hillside covered in cornfields three miles away from the runway.
Foggy conditions were partly to blame for the accident. However, as per Biography, a report from the National Transportation Safety Board came to a stark conclusion: “The flight crew’s lack of altitude awareness at critical points during the approach due to poor cockpit discipline in that the crew did not follow prescribed procedure.”
Only 13 of the 82 people on board the aircraft survived the catastrophic crash, which deeply affected Colbert.
He previously told Anderson Cooper: “I was personally shattered and then you reform yourself in this quiet, grieving world that was created in the house.
“My mother had me to take care of, which I think was sort of a gift for her, a sense of purpose at that point. But I also had her to take care of. It became a very quiet house, very dark, and ordinary concerns of childhood kind of disappeared.”

Stephen Colbert was emotional as he made the announcement (Image: CBS)
Colbert added to Cooper: “What do you get from loss? You get awareness of other people’s loss, which allows you to connect with that other person, which allows you to love more deeply and to understand what it’s like to be a human being if it’s true that all humans suffer.”
As he grew older, the star became rebellious and even though he was whip-smart, Colbert showed little interest in school and studying.
Instead, he immersed himself into the worlds of science fiction and fantasy, with the works of J.R.R. Tolkien and Dungeons & Dragons offering solace.
Additionally, he found comfort in Catholicism as he tried to make sense of the terrible tragedy.
Only when Colbert went to college did the weight of his loss hit home, and he admitted to Oprah Winfrey in 2012 that he was in “bad shape” and felt “so sad about”.
Along with the realms of sci-fi and fantasy, Colbert discovered a passion for improvisation and theatre which lit a fire in him.
He transferred from the Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia to Northwestern University in Chicago to study performing arts and was where he would meet some of his future comedy partners, including Amy Sedaris.

Stephen Colbert has been on The Late Show since 2015 (Image: CBS)
Stephen Colbert’s heartbreaking health issues
Along with his personal family tragedy at a young age, Colbert now faces several health issues.
He suffered a burst appendix, trying to work through excruciating pain while he was recording multiple episodes of his show.
Following surgery, he was given strong pain relief medication and joked about his experiences and apparent hallucinations.
He was also diagnosed with benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV), which causes balance issues and dizziness.
Colbert has to regularly do a series of exercises to help him manage his condition.
Stephen Colbert’s stirring tribute to his late mother
The star sadly lost his mother Lorna Elizabeth Colbert (née Tuck) in 2013 at the age of 92.
He paid tribute to her on The Colbert Report, he said: “She knew more than her share of tragedy, losing her brother and her husband and three of her sons.
“But her love for her family and her faith in God somehow gave her the strength not only to go on but to love life without bitterness and instil in all of us a gratitude for every day we have together.
“And I know it may sound greedy to want more days with a person who lived so long, but the fact that my mother was 92 does not diminish, it only magnifies, the enormity of the room whose door has now quietly shut.”
He also commented on grief and how it was its “own thing” and one had to make peace with its “presence”.
“If you try to ignore it, it will be like a wolf at your door,” he said, as reported by Psychology Today.