Stephen Colbert’s Humiliating Next Role Revealed

Stephen Colbert’s next act will come with a paycheck, though it will also pull him down a peg from his late-night show at the center of cost-cutting efforts by CBS.

The 61-year-old comedian is slated to start acting again as a guest star in a crime drama spin-off series, according to entertainment insiders who spoke with Deadline. Ironically, Colbert will play a late-night talk show host in the series, forcing him to parody his own career for the past 10 years.

The show, “Elsbeth,” will feature Colbert as host of “Way Late with Scotty Bristol” as CBS seeks to firm up its spin-off to the popular series “The Good Wife.”

Production will begin this week in New York City. Given that timeline, it’s almost certain that Colbert agreed to take the role before he was informed that his late-night show was being shuttered after losing a reported $40 million to $50 million annually.

Critics have cried foul, accusing CBS of sacrificing Colbert and his anti-Trump screeds in order to curry favor with the Federal Communication Commission amid a merger with Skydance. The deal ultimately went through last month, but not before Colbert’s peers like Jon Stewart, Jimmy Kimmel, and others accused the network of paying a “bribe” to President Donald Trump in the form of a $15 million settlement in his defamation case.

One day after making a similar claim on his show, Colbert emerged to break the news to his tearful studio audience that he was the latest victim of “cancel culture.”

“Before we start the show, I want to let you know something that I found out just last night: Next year will be our last season,” he told the crowd on July 27 at the Ed Sullivan Theater. “The network will be ending ‘The Late Show’ in May.”

The news was met with loud boos from the audience.

“Yeah, I share your feelings,” he said. “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.”

“We get to do this show for each other, every day, all day, and I’ve had the pleasure and the responsibility of sharing what we do every day with you in front of this camera for the last 10 years,” he went on, the NY Post reported.

“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.”

Adding insult to injury, a much-hyped protest in support of Colbert fizzled out last week when organizers were able to muster just two dozen participants outside the CBS headquarters in New York.