Late-night talk show host Stephen Colbert was greeted with a warm and rousing standing ovation as he took the stage to present the first award of the evening at the 77th Primetime Emmy Awards. It wasn't the only long and moving applause he received from his peers.
The Emmys appearance came at a complicated time for the 61-year-old comedian. Colbert is set to conclude The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in May 2026, following CBS's announcement three months ago that the long‐running show would be cancelled, citing financial reasons. CBS is also the network showing the Emmys.
The Emmys appearance came at a complicated time for the 61-year-old comedian. The cancellation of The Late Show has drawn significant attention, especially after Colbert publicly criticized a $16 million settlement between CBS's parent company, Paramount Global, and former President Donald Trump earlier this summer. Critics and colleagues alike wondered whether the timing had implications beyond finances.
Since taking over "The Late Show" in 2015 from David Letterman, Colbert became a leading voice in political commentary, particularly during the Trump presidency. The cancellation was celebrated by President Trump, stating on his social media, "I absolutely love that Colbert got fired. His talent was even less than his ratings." Colbert, a long-time critic of the President's, responded in kind on his show, telling Trump to "go fuck himself."
Stephen Colbert earns a massive standing ovation at the #Emmys and jokes "Is anyone hiring?" pic.twitter.com/vepMYMXdSX
— Variety (@Variety) September 15, 2025
Amid that context, Colbert's appearance at the Emmys carried extra weight. He leveraged his stage time not just to present, but to lean into his uncertain future with clever jokes. When he asked Harrison Ford to pass his resume to Steven Spielberg, the room erupted in laughter and applause.
Colbert jokingly responded to the reception, holding up a teenage headshot and a resume, he joked, "While I have your attention, is anyone hiring? Because I've got 200 very well-qualified candidates with me here tonight who will be available in June."
The Emmy for "The Late Show"
One of the most emotional moments of the 77th Primetime Emmy Awards came when Stephen Colbert took the stage to accept the Emmy for Outstanding Talk Series. During his speech, he paused to honor someone who had worked beside him for more than a decade: Amy Cole, his longtime assistant who died in March 2024.
"I want to dedicate this to my mom and dad, her mom and dad, and a young woman who should be here tonight, Amy Cole," Colbert said, his voice heavy with emotion.
Cole passed away at the age of 53 after a brief illness. She worked with Colbert for 16 years, supporting him across projects including The Colbert Report, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and the animated political satire Tooning Out the News. Colleagues described her as not just an executive assistant but a key part of the team who helped guide the day-to-day rhythm of Colbert's television empire.
And then he went on to say:
"Ten years ago, in September of 2014, Spike Jonze stopped by my office and said, 'Hey, what do you want this show to be about?' And I said, 'Oh, I don't know how you could do it, but I'd kind of like to do a late-night comedy show that was about love' I don't know if I ever figured that out, but at a certain point, and you can guess what that point was, I realized that, in some ways, we were doing a late-night comedy show about loss, and that's related to love, because sometimes you can only truly know how much you love something when you get a sense that you might be losing it."
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