When it comes to buzz-worthy late-night guests, few names can compete with Taylor Swift. Except, apparently, one: Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.
Carney has emerged victorious over the global pop superstar as late-night TV’s most-watched guest on YouTube this year, edging out Swift by well over 1 million views (7.35M vs. 6.24M).
Carney’s January visit to The Daily Show was a news-making affair. Coming just a week after Canadian PM Justin Trudeau announced his resignation, Carney soft-launched his bid to replace him in conversation with Stewart. (He’d make it official a few days later, and would go on to win the election two months later.)
Swift, meanwhile, ranks as the second most popular for her visit to The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on the heels of releasing her new album, The Life of a Showgirl.
While few can match the ratings bump that Swift brings to late-night shows, the geopolitical attraction of Carney delivered TDS the YouTube viewership crown for 2025. In fact, the allure of newsy gets is far from an outlier.
In an analysis of the YouTube viewership data for the five major nightly late-night shows, LateNighter found that traditional celebrity guests made up only half of the top 20 most-watched interviews in 2025.
In fact, the three of the top 5 most-viewed interviews were with politicians. Following Carney and Swift, the third most popular interview was Zohran Mamdani’s chat with Jon Stewart on The Daily Show, pulling 5.61 million views.
Bernie Sanders rounded out the top five with his own Daily Show interview, which netted 5.01 million views. Ranking between the two pols is another purely celebrity booking: EJAE, Audrey Nuna, and Rei Ami, aka HUNTR/X—the voices behind KPop Demon Hunters, which achieved near-Swiftian levels of pop cultural ubiquity this year.
Former vice president Kamala Harris was also a big draw (#9, 3.64M) when she gave her first interview since losing the 2024 election to The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
Another fruitful booking for late-night hosts this year? Other late-night hosts. Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert’s visits to each other’s shows on the same night in September paid off. Colbert’s appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! brought in 4.68 million views to make it the 6th most-viewed interview of the year, while Kimmel’s visit to The Late Show takes the #8 spot with 4.02 million views.
Just outside of the top 20 were Conan O’Brien’s appearances on JKL and The Late Show, as well as a second clip from Kimmel’s visit to Colbert that featured JKL sidekick Guillermo Rodriguez.
All told, The Daily Show bested the competition with eight of the 20 most-watched interviews this year. (In addition to pols, the show found success in interviewing former 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Kroft following CBS’ settlement with Donald Trump over the storied news program.) All of the show’s top interviews were conducted by Jon Stewart.
The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon nabbed seven spots in the top 20, thanks to five entertainers and one tech YouTuber, Linus Sebastian. (Taylor Swift, whose hour-long interview was broken up into multiple segments on YouTube, appears on the list twice.)
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel Live! each scored four spots on the list. Even with Seth Meyers’ visit from Taylor Swift, Late Night with Seth Meyers was shut out completely.
Perhaps the biggest winner, though, is comedian Bill Burr. With visits to Fallon and Kimmel, he’s the only guest to make the list twice with separate talk show visits. In fact, Burr was also Meyers’ most-watched guest of the year, delivering 1.49M views to Late Night‘s YouTube channel.
The full list of this year’s 20 most-viewed late-night interviews follows below:
- Mark Carney (The Daily Show) – 7.35M
- Taylor Swift (The Tonight Show) – 6.24M
- Zohran Mamdani (The Daily Show) – 5.61M
- EJAE, Audrey Nuna & Rei Ami (HUNTR/X) (The Tonight Show) – 5.08M
- Sen. Bernie Sanders (The Daily Show) – 5.01M
- Stephen Colbert (Jimmy Kimmel Live!) – 4.68M
- Taylor Swift (The Life of a Showgirl Track Breakdown) (The Tonight Show) – 4.13M
- Jimmy Kimmel (The Late Show) – 4.02M
- Kamala Harris (The Late Show) – 3.64M
- Bill Burr (The Tonight Show) – 3.48M
- Arnold Schwarzenegger (Jimmy Kimmel Live!) – 3.27M
- Bill Burr (Jimmy Kimmel Live!) – 3.22M
- Selena Gomez & benny blanco (The Tonight Show) – 3.16M
- Steve Kroft (The Daily Show) – 3.02M
- Linus Sebastian (The Tonight Show ft. guest co-host Bad Bunny) – 3.001M
- Oren Cass (The Daily Show) – 2.997M
- Patrick McGee (The Daily Show) – 2.91M
- Tom Cruise (The Tonight Show) – 2.87M
- Tristan Harris (The Daily Show) – 2.83M
- Rahm Emanuel (The Daily Show) – 2.64M
All of Canada, it seemed, saw Carney on Stewart. Would be great if the numbers were broken down by country.
Not surprised the Carney interview came out on top. It was the way many Canadians, including myself, got to know him during the election.