David Letterman to Revisit Late Show for Stephen Colbert’s Farewell

David Letterman is set to bid farewell to Stephen Colbert—and the CBS show he launched more than three decades ago.

CBS has announced that Letterman will sit down with Late Show host Colbert on Thursday, May 14. The musical guest that night, said to be booked at Letterman’s request, will be The Strokes.

The appearance marks Letterman’s second visit to The Late Show under Colbert, following a highly rated homecoming in November 2023. (The musical guest that night—also at Letterman’s request—was The National.)

Prior to his return two-and-a-half years ago, it wasn’t clear Letterman would ever set foot in the Ed Sullivan Theater again. Shortly before his own final show in 2015, he told Jane Pauley that revisiting the studio he’d called home for 22 years might be too difficult.

Letterman has been one of Colbert’s most vocal supporters following the show’s cancellation, recently blasting his former network bosses as “lying weasels” in an interview with The New York Times.

With The Late Show set to air its final episode May 21, the program’s closing stretch promises to feature a steady parade of familiar faces paying tribute to Colbert and the franchise that became a late-night institution.

As LateNighter first reported, a reunion of the Strike Force Five (Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers, Jimmy Fallon, and John Oliver) will kick off the show’s penultimate week Monday May 11.

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