NEW YORK: Comedian Stephen Col­bert signed off from his late-night talk show on Thursday after 11 seasons with a sentimental chat with Beatles musician Paul McCartney and pointed jokes about his forced departure from CBS.

McCartney had appeared in the same theatre in 1964, when the Beatles were introduced to Americans on The Ed Sullivan Show. Colbert asked McCartney what he remembered from that performance, what Sullivan was like and how the Beatles viewed the US at the time.

The singer said he and his young bandmates, in their early 20s at the time, saw America as “the land of the free, the greatest democracy.”

“That’s what it was, and hopefully still is,” McCartney said. The finale ended with McCartney singing the Beatles classic Hello, Goodbye with Colbert on background vocals.

The final instalment of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert began with the comic thanking the in-person and television audience for watching his nightly take on current events, often punctuated by verbal jabs at Republican President Donald Trump.

“We were here to feel the news with you, and I don’t know about you, but I sure have felt it,” Colbert said to laughter in the Ed Sullivan Theatre in New York.

When the show concluded, Trump wrote on Truth Social that Colbert had: “No talent, no ratings, no life. He was like a dead person. You could take any person off of the street and they would be better than this total jerk. Thank goodness he’s finally gone!”

Published in Dawn, May 23rd, 2026