Ten Guests We’d Love to See Visit Colbert Before The Late Show Ends

The final months of a long-running late-night show have historically been a time for homecomings, with beloved regulars cycling back to swap war stories, trade tributes, and help the host take a victory lap. That was certainly true when Johnny Carson signed off from The Tonight Show in 1992, and again when David Letterman closed the curtain on his late-night career in 2015—farewell runs that were defined as much by gratitude and nostalgia as they were by comedy.

The ending of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, however, comes with some unresolved tension. Unlike his predecessors, Stephen Colbert is not stepping away on his own terms, with the show’s cancellation—while never officially framed as political—having unfolded against the backdrop of his sustained criticism of Donald Trump and amid a multi-billion-dollar merger that required regulatory approval from appointees of the president. It’s a context that’s sure to add further intrigue to the usual late-night victory lap.

Colbert has said his sole focus in the final months before his show ends this spring is to “land this plane absolutely beautifully.” That mission will almost certainly involve some special guests—returning favorites, figures deeply connected to Colbert himself, and perhaps some first-timers uniquely positioned to reflect on the unusual circumstances surrounding The Late Show’s end. With that in mind, here are ten guests we’d love to see stop by before the lights on the Ed Sullivan Theater go down for good.

Jon Stewart

It’s hard to imagine Colbert closing out his run without welcoming back his longtime friend and late-night mentor, Jon Stewart. While Colbert joined The Daily Show before Stewart took over in 1999, it was during Stewart’s tenure that Colbert rose from correspondent to cultural force. Stewart later served as an executive producer on both The Colbert Report and The Late Show, cementing a creative partnership that’s spanned more than two decades.

Stewart has appeared on Colbert’s Late Show more than 20 times, but he hasn’t been a sit-down guest since 2022.

Strike Force Five

For much of late-night TV history, rivalry has been an organizing principle. Colbert’s era, by contrast, has been defined by détente. That spirit was most memorably embodied in Strike Force Five, the podcast launched during the 2023 WGA strike by Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers, and John Oliver to raise money for their out-of-work staffs.

Since then, the hosts have continued to pop up on one another’s shows, with a good portion of the Strike Force Five memorably converging on the Ed Sullivan Theater the Monday after Colbert announced The Late Show’s cancellation last July. Still, a true, on-air reunion of all five together has yet to happen. Pulling off that full-group appearance before Colbert signs off would be must-see TV, and would put a fitting capstone on an unprecedented era of late-night peace.

Howard Stern

Speaking of must-see TV, a late-night visit from Howard Stern is always an event. Stern remains one of the few guests who doesn’t play by talk-show rules, saying what he thinks whether his host wants him to or not—and often drawing unusually candid, unscripted reactions in the process. While Stephen Colbert has taken a characteristically measured approach to his show’s cancellation—eschewing scorched-earth rhetoric and generally steering guests away from the topic—Stern is not known for his restraint, and would almost certainly go there.

That dynamic was on full display during Stern’s lone prior appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in 2019, which yielded an energetic and compelling 34-minute extended interview. A return visit in Colbert’s final stretch wouldn’t just be headline-making—it could produce the kind of unvarnished conversation late night rarely allows, precisely when the circumstances demand it most.

Joe Biden

A visit from Joe Biden would carry a different kind of weight. Biden has given few interviews since leaving the White House last year, but given his history with Colbert, it’s easy to imagine him agreeing to one final appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. The two men first connected in 2015, when Colbert welcomed Biden for an emotional, wide-ranging interview shaped by their shared experience of family tragedy—an appearance Colbert has since credited with helping him find his authentic voice after years of performing behind the satirical persona of The Colbert Report.

Biden would go on to return to The Late Show five more times ahead of taking office in 2021, but hasn’t appeared since. Colbert did, however, break with late-night tradition in 2024 by hosting a record-breaking political fundraiser for Biden during his re-election campaign. As for what the two might discuss now, there’s an unmistakable point of overlap: like Colbert, Biden did not envision his tenure ending the way it did. That shared sense of unfinished business could make for one of the most reflective—and consequential—conversations of Colbert’s farewell run.

Jon Batiste

Next to Colbert himself, arguably no other single person did more to shape the identity and emotional temperature of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert than its original bandleader, Jon Batiste. From the start, Colbert and Batiste bonded over what both have described as an immediate creative chemistry, with Batiste infusing the show with a spirit of openness, joy, and playful spontaneity. He’s often described his work as “social music”—a philosophy that helped transform the Ed Sullivan Theater into a place that felt less like a studio and more like a communal gathering.

That aesthetic has carried on under Louis Cato, who took over bandleading duties after Batiste departed in 2022 to focus on a solo career that has earned him both a Grammy and an Academy Award. Still, it’s hard to imagine Colbert taking his final bow without paying homage to Batiste—not just as a collaborator, but as a foundational presence whose seven-year tenure helped define the soul of Colbert’s Late Show.

Steve Carell

Few figures loom larger in Stephen Colbert’s professional origin story than Steve Carell. Colbert’s first professional performing job came as an understudy for Carell at Second City Chicago in the early 1990s, the start of a creative relationship that would carry them through The Dana Carvey Show and The Daily Show, where their shared sensibility—and infectious chemistry—was always a highlight.

Carell’s visits to Colbert’s late-night shows have reliably felt like events, not least his most recent appearance in May 2024, when the duo revived their old Daily Show segment “Even Stephven.” As Colbert approaches the end of his Late Show run, here’s hoping for one more laugh-filled on-air reunion.

James “Baby Doll” Dixon

Yes, it’s inside baseball—but there might well have never been a Late Show with Stephen Colbert without James Dixon, Stephen Colbert’s longtime manager and the behind-the-scenes architect of modern late night, who also represents Jon Stewart, Jimmy Kimmel, and Josh Johnson. In terms of influence, he’s arguably the most consequential figure in the genre outside of Lorne Michaels—a power broker whose fingerprints are all over the last 30 years of late-night television.

He’s also a character: perpetually bronzed, chain-smoking, drenched in Versace cologne, and famous for calling nearly everyone he meets “baby doll”—the nickname that stuck. Dixon is fiercely loyal to his clients, and just as fiercely private, rarely consenting to interviews. But if Colbert insisted on bringing him out from behind the curtain, it’s easy to imagine Dixon acquiescing. For the LateNighter set, at least, it would be utterly rapt viewing—a rare glimpse at the man who has helped steer an entire era of late night from the shadows.

The Pope

Asked over the years which guest he’d most like to welcome to his show, Stephen Colbert—a devout Catholic who famously once taught Sunday School—has usually had the same answer: the Pope. Early in his The Late Show with Stephen Colbert run, Colbert devoted an entire episode to Pope Francis, later explaining that his dream wasn’t a traditional sit-down interview but a cooking segment—one rooted in fellowship rather than formality. (Colbert did, at least, get a face-to-face meeting with Francis during a Vatican-hosted comedy summit in 2024.)

More recently, Colbert has updated his wish to the new pontiff, Pope Leo XIV, proposing they meet in Chicago for deep-dish pizza and a White Sox game. Is it a long shot? Absolutely. But as Colbert looks to land the plane on his own terms, few guests would better capture the mix of sincerity, curiosity, and gentle irreverence that has defined his Late Show.

David Letterman

When The Late Show with Stephen Colbert signs off in May, it won’t just mark the end of Stephen Colbert’s 20-plus-year run in late night—it will also close the book on CBS’s Late Show franchise, American television’s longest-running and most successful nightly talk-show brand outside of The Tonight Show. And that franchise would not exist without David Letterman.

When Letterman retired in 2015, he suggested he might never be able to return to the show as a guest. And yet he did, making a homecoming in late 2023 that delivered a significant ratings spike and reminded viewers just how indelibly his voice is tied to the Ed Sullivan Theater. Since CBS canceled The Late Show, Letterman has been vocal in his praise of Colbert, publicly affirming both the host and his work. A final in-person visit would allow both hosts to pay tribute to one another, and give Letterman and his fans the chance to say goodbye, one last time, to the show he created.

His Family

For most of his career, Stephen Colbert and his wife, Evie McGee Colbert, drew a firm line between his public life and his private one, raising their three children well outside the spotlight. That boundary softened during the pandemic, when the Colberts decamped to South Carolina and transformed The Late Show with Stephen Colbert into a true family operation. Evie—and their now-adult children Madeleine, Peter, and John—became the show’s entire crew and audience for Colbert’s at-home COVID episodes, offering viewers an unusually personal glimpse into the host’s life beyond the desk.

In the years since, Evie has remained a regular on-air presence, even as the show returned to normalcy. While their children are no longer part of the production, they remain central to who Colbert is—and to the values that have shaped his work. As he prepares to take his final bow, it’s hard to imagine a more meaningful farewell than one that includes the people who’ve always been there when the cameras weren’t.

Colbert is set to bid his final farewell to The Late Show in May 2026. CBS has not yet announced a specific date for the show’s last episode.

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