Stephen Colbert Reveals His 'Dream' "Late Show" Guest Before Show Ends Brenton BlanchetJanuary 28, 2026 at 9:37 PM 0 Stephen Colbert appears on 'Late Night with Seth Meyers' Lloyd Bishop/NBC via Getty The Late Show host Stephen Colbert is sharing who he considers his "dream" guest before the show ends The comedian revealed on Late Night with Seth Meyers that he indeed has a name in mind Colbert also confirmed on the show that his 10year run on CBS officially ends in May Stephen Colbert is just four months away from his last day on CBS — and he's got one guest in particular he'd still like to j...
- - Stephen Colbert Reveals His 'Dream' "Late Show" Guest Before Show Ends
Brenton BlanchetJanuary 28, 2026 at 9:37 PM
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Stephen Colbert appears on 'Late Night with Seth Meyers'
Lloyd Bishop/NBC via Getty
The Late Show host Stephen Colbert is sharing who he considers his "dream" guest before the show ends
The comedian revealed on Late Night with Seth Meyers that he indeed has a name in mind
Colbert also confirmed on the show that his 10-year run on CBS officially ends in May
Stephen Colbert is just four months away from his last day on CBS — and he's got one guest in particular he'd still like to join him at the Ed Sullivan Theater.
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert host, 61, announced on Tuesday, Jan. 27, that his eponymous show has set its official end date for May 2026. And as he revealed while guesting on the latest episode of Late Night with Seth Meyers, he's got a final "dream" guest in mind.
During Colbert's appearance, host Seth Meyers asked his fellow comedian who he'd consider a "dream guest" he's "trying to land" before the show's conclusion.
"Yeah, the pope," Colbert said, referring to Pope Leo as "American Pope."
Stephen Colbert (left); Pope Leo
Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times via Getty; Shutterstock / Fabrizio Maffei
After Meyers, 52, reminded Colbert that he met "the last pope" while traveling to Rome with a few other comedians in June 2024, Meyers insisted that Pope Francis would not have been a "good talk-show guest."
"Any pope's pretty good," Colbert quipped, before Meyers joked, "new pope's the one you want."
"Of course, American Pope, Chicago Pope. Of course you want the new pope," Colbert said, while still admitting that Pope Francis "would have been an infallible talk-show guest."
He added, "This is good that you did not meet the pope, because this attitude... this attitude does not go across in the Apostolic Palace. Those Swiss guards would take that halberd and just take you down. In their big pantaloons and everything."
Indeed, Colbert was joined by dozens of comedians — including Jimmy Fallon, Conan O'Brien and Chris Rock — who traveled to the Vatican to meet Pope Francis in June 2024, less than a year before his April 2025 death. At the time, he called the experience "fantastic" and an "honor."
"After shaking his hand, I can walk again," Colbert joked after the meeting.
On Tuesday, during his appearance on Late Night, Colbert confirmed that his long-running show is set to wrap in May after 10 seasons of him behind the desk. "It feels real now," Colbert told Meyers. "It did not feel... I mean, I know it was real, but now, there's four months left."
CBS' decision to cancel the Late Show came days after Colbert's July 14, 2025 episode, in which he criticized Paramount, the network's parent company, for its $16 million settlement with President Donald Trump earlier that month. Trump alleged the network's 60 Minutes deceptively edited an interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris. Paramount also needed approval by the Trump-controlled FCC for a merger with Skydance Media, which was approved in August 2025.
In a statement from CBS shared with PEOPLE at the time, the network said the decision was "purely financial." The Late Show franchise began in 1993 with David Letterman as host. Colbert took over after Letterman's 2015 retirement.
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"Listen, you can do comedy in a lot of different places, [but] there's no place like the Ed Sullivan Theater," he said on Tuesday. "But it's really the people. That's really what I care about. That's really what I'm going to miss more than anything."
on People
Source: "AOL Entertainment"
Source: Entertainment
Published: January 28, 2026 at 06:46PM on Source: RED MAG
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