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Before Stephen Colbert stops being a real late night host for CBS, he'll play a fake late night host for CBS's Elsbeth
Weeks after The Late Show was cancelled, Stephen Colbert is already on the set of another CBS show to play... a late-night host.
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The news that CBS was cancelling The Late Show has been one of the biggest stories in television this year, but it looks like CBS is bringing Stephen Colbert back for at least one guest spot before they pull him off the air in May 2026. In a true stretch of his acting prowess, Stephen Colbert will be playing a late-night host in Elsbeth for the crime anthology’s upcoming third season on CBS, the same network that recently fired him.
Details of how exactly Stephen Colbert, whose job at The Late Show is coming to an end next year, will be joining the cast of Elsbeth are still not known. Vulture has reported that the role was written specifically with him in mind before CBS cancelled his show. In the upcoming episode, Colbert will play Scotty Bristol, host of Way Late with Scotty Bristol.
As a high-profile guest star, there are only two outcomes available for Stephen Colbert on Elsbeth – either he is going to be the killer or he’s going to be killed. We’re inclined to believe that it will be the latter, considering the conversation he had with Wendell Piece earlier this year. In it, Cobert expresses his desire to play a corpse, to which Pierce replies, “I can make that happen.”
While that conversation may have been the catalyst that brought Stephen Colbert onto the Elsbeth cast, his upcoming appearance as a late-night host takes on a much different feel in the wake of CBS cancelling his show. What would have been a simple guest star role has suddenly become one of the most ironic castings in Hollywood, and we can’t wait to see how it comes together.
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